Displays Recommend me a good KVM switch

I find my self in need of at least three if not four PCs outputting to a dual input monitor. I have HDMI and DP on my 3440 x 1440 display. A mix of DP and HDMI would be the dream, but I doubt a quality KVM with both will be affordable so the ideal solution would be to retain the DP for my gaming rig and use the HDMI for the other two (maybe three) machines.

Value KVMs are, in my experience, utter trash and are prone to flickering, temp drop-outs and screen artefacts and rarely go beyond 60Hz; but I don't want to cough up a small fortune for a KVM. Are there any really good options out there south of £60-£80?

I tried HDMI splitters but they're shite as well, it seems.

Cheers all

 

Ensure you get "8k" KVM switch for DP 1.4.

I have 2 externally identical no-brand aliexpress KVM switches, one is "4k" the other is "8k". The 4k one is DP 1.2, so can't do 3440x1440 very well. The 8k one is not only able to do 3440x1440 144hz, is now doing 4k 165 hz with HDR very reliably.

 

What kind of money are we talking here?

 

I'm using something looks exactly like this with 8k written on it, but only USB 2. History says I bought it for just over £30.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002363253939.html

My in action:

 

Thanks. Do you know if it supports EDID emulation?

 

Afraid not. I had to look it up, switching is like unplugging the monitor, so no EDID emulation.

 

Bugger. Thanks for looking it up though, it is appreciated.

 

I've taken a punt on one on Amazon resale - 4 port 8K@60 with EDID support.

We'll see how it performs on Thursday.

 

...or Wednesday

 

Does it work well?

 

I won't know until I get home later

 

Well, it seems to work. Switching time is around 2-3 seconds.

Getting a little bit of noise on one channel but it could be a crappy HDMI cable. Will have a play around and see.

 

When I first noticed the title of this thread, I thought to myself, why does @David want a Kipper Vending Machine…

 

Because I like fish.

Obviously.

 

OK, the noise turned into intermittent signal drops and some light artifacting. I pulled out a spare HDMI cable, labelled 4K UHD, and swapped out the cable from the KVM to the monitor. That was almost three hours ago and all the squirrelly crap stopped and hasn't returned. That's the only decent quality HDMI lead I own so I clearly need to up my cable game and ditch the umpteen non-descript rat tails parading as HDMI cables.

The hunt begins. Anyone with a good shout on quality cables go loud now, please.

 

No expert at all but I wanted some thin and long HDMI for home/travel and bought these, they have been fine for 4k@144 with HDR at home, also compact and manageable for travel, running across a hotel room etc, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CBBX9YJS

 

Ah yes, when I daisy chained my two DP KDM for 3 machines, there was also stability problem. It was fixed by putting in a short cable than standard 1.8m cable for the steam deck dock.

So trying short cable is also an option, especially for the run to the monitor if your monitor isn't on a long arm.

 

The one causing the issue was a short cable.

I've decided to test the entire horde of my HDMI cables. Any that show any instability are getting binned, but I'll probably just order all new ones anyway.