Ok I know you can hook up two monitors to one PC but...

Dhalphir

Can you hook up two PCs to one monitor?

Basically whats happening is that my monitor fucked up. Luckily, I had already placed my order for my new computer. However, my parents and I decided to keep the old computer, so that we didn't have to reinstall Microsoft Office, and transfer a whole bunch of shit onto the new PC.

Without the old monitor, we looked at the idea of running both PCs off of one monitor.

Is there any way to do this without physically swapping the cable over each time? I don't think there is, since the monitor would only have the one cable, but I figure it can't hurt to ask.

I'd Fuck Chuck Lidell Up

if i am not very much mistaken certain monitors will take more than one computer

and for the ones that can't you can always get a KVM switch and run them seperately

Malyonsus

Yes, KVM switches are designed specifically for this purpose (namely hooking two (or more!) computers to one keyboard, monitor and mouse). A quick check on newegg informs me that the price varies, but you can probably get a cheap one for under $50.

IreneDAdler

I'm pretty sure any monitor can be connected to as many computers as there are input slots. My monitor has 2 VGA and 1 DVI inputs, and I can connect 3 computers to it. But again, as previous posters suggested, you can always use a switch if your monitor only has one input.

Smasher

Out of curiosity, what happens if you turn on multiple computers on the monitor with no switch?

Thomamelas

Malyonsus wrote: »

Yes, KVM switches are designed specifically for this purpose (namely hooking two (or more!) computers to one keyboard, monitor and mouse). A quick check on newegg informs me that the price varies, but you can probably get a cheap one for under $50.

Belkin makes some alright ones for two PC's in the $25 range. And of course you can scale up the number you need quite high. I've seen 64 but I would assume some of the KVM over IP stuff would go higher.

deke55555

If you have the routers and cabling, you can also hook one computer up to the physical hardware and use something like VNC to remote desktop to the other computer when you need it.

DrFrylock

Smasher wrote: »

Out of curiosity, what happens if you turn on multiple computers on the monitor with no switch?

A monitor with multiple inputs generally has a button on the front that cycles through the inputs. Most are smart enough to auto-cycle if there's nothing on the current input, so if you have two computers plugged in (A and and you're on input A, and you turn off Computer A, the monitor will switch to input B.

Echo

Smasher wrote: »

Out of curiosity, what happens if you turn on multiple computers on the monitor with no switch?

My monitor has a VGA and DVI input, and a button on the front to select which one to use as input. So I have the computer via DVI and the 360 via VGA.