[ale] OT: stupid hardware question

[djinn at djinnspace.com]

<putting on tech hat...oooh...dusty>
AT motherboards in general respond very poorly to having their keyboards removed
while powered on.  ATX, as far as I know, doesn't have this problem.
That being said, I've never had a problem with AT machines on a non-intelligent
switch...

Here's the dance I go thru, without any ill effects (AT and ATX, Belkin OmniCube
KVM and some old ABCD rotating dial KVM)...
1) select port 1 on KVM
2) power on machine attached to port 1
3) wait for POST to detect keyboard...or get all the way to a prompt and log in
if you're paranoid
4) switch to port 2 on KVM
5) power on machine attached to port 2
shake, stir, repeat

Once everything is booted and humming along, you *should* be able to switch
between them with no problems.  It's not exactly the same thing as yanking the
cable from the back of the computer.

Short answer:  power dying is a lucky (because it should've been your
motherboard) but expected consequence of removing the keyboard cable from the AT
motherboard, so don't do it again. ;)   As long as you don't yank the cable out,
you should be able to switch to your heart's content.  And I think I may have
some spare AT motherboards lying around if my advice causes a catastrophic
loss....... ;)

jenn




"Joseph A. Knapka" wrote:

> Displaying my ignorance... again...
>
> Today I got a 4-port KVM switch. It doesn't have a keyboard
> emulation circuit; the instructions said, "unplug the keyboard
> from your computer and plug it back in; if the machine still
> responds to the keyboard then it will work with this switch."
> So I did that (thinking even at the time that I'd heard
> somewhere it wasn't a good idea, but what the hell, I'm
> following instructions, right?) And the instant I pulled
> the keyboard connector out the machine died - powered off. And
> wouldn't power on again. Power supply is dead. (Amazingly enough,
> the motherboard is uninjured - moved it to another case and
> it booted fine.)
>
> So is this behavior I should have expected? I'm very hesitant
> to try using the KVM switch with any of my machines now,
> since switching machines is the moral (and electrical)
> equivalent of unplugging the keybord. Incidentally, it
> was an AT keyboard connector, on an AT motherboard, if that
> matters.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -- Joe Knapka
> "You know how many remote castles there are along the gorges? You
>  can't MOVE for remote castles!" -- Lu Tze re. Uberwald
> // Linux MM Documentation in progress:
> // http://home.earthlink.net/~jknapka/linux-mm/vmoutline.html
> 2nd Lbl A + 1 = 2nd Pause 2nd Prt GTO 2 R/S
> --
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