Connecting two computers to one monitor

Question

My monitor has three input sources: VGA, DVI-D, and display port. My first computer is connected using DVI port and is working properly. I tried to connect another computer to the same monitor using a DVI to display port convertor cable. It seems that my monitor does not receive any signals from the second computer and goes to the power saving mode. The second computer works when it is connected to the DVI port. Any ideas how to fix this?? Thank you

Answer 1

If your monitor has a 'source' button on it (they often look like this), that should switch between the various inputs.

Otherwise, you can get a KVM Switch to change over the keyboard, mouse and monitor between computers all at once (There are probably variants that only change the monitor as well).

Answer 2

We do this all the time at work, it's probably an electrical thing. Remove the DVI computer from the problem and get the monitor working with just the display port converter, then try to add the working DVI system into the mix. Getting both to work independently will give you a baseline that will help you find your problem more easily.

Two other pieces of advice--

1) You might just try VNC on one of the computers instead, it actually makes it much easier to do things like copy and paste between computers and the screen sharing issue goes away as do the multiple input devices (which become annoying)

2) There is a free program called Synergy out there that EVERYONE who runs multiple side-by-side computers should at least know about--allows you to easily share keyboard and mouse (although it is really made for multiple monitors so it may not be for you, but still you should know about it, it's fantastic)