3 monitor laptop dock or KVM

Hiya gang. I’ve got a personal Surface Book 3, and a HP laptop from work. Can anyone suggest a triple monitor compatible dock or KVM they have personally used? My new work won’t give me RD access or I’d just remote into the HP machine using the “all monitors” flag.

Thanks for your feedback.

I would go with an external GPU enclosure (like the Razer Core X) and then use USB-C for the PCI-e and use whatever GPU you want in the dock.

$300 for an enclosure + $300 to $450 for a graphics card is a little more than I wanted to spend…I’d like to get through this for less than $300…ideally less than $200.

Oh, I was thinking the company was paying for it since it was work related :wink:

You can get any cheaper used graphics card off ebay, something with multiple monitor support like the K2000 or K2200 should be cheap ($40 - $90) and then get a cheaper version of the dock. The Powercolor equivalent of the Razer is around $240 (pre-COVID it was $175).

That should get you under $300 pretty easily.

Failing that, you could go with something like this: Amazon.com

My main qualm with that is I’m unsure how good the 3D support of the multiple displays is. Passing through a real GPU to a real PCIe slot is one sure way to make sure there’s no jigery pokery going on with how the “GPU” is rendering on those displays.

The card dock would be nice, but it also doesn’t provide sharing for the peripherals…camera, flash drives, speakers, mic, etc.

I think the Lenovo is only 2 monitors.

They’ll probably provide me something in the $150 range, but I don’t mind purchasing a dock if it gives me everything I want.

It will drive 3 at the same time, at full 4k and 60Hz if I read the manual correctly.

HDMI - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08DKXLQR1

Display Port - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089LY4S63

It does a great job for everything but audio. Mine has noise on the audio circuit, so I use a different switch for audio.

Thank you for the referral. I’ll have to see if they offer a triple monitor option.

I’ve never seen a 3 monitor KVM.

KVMs, like much in computing, tend to run in powers of 2 - 2, 4, 8, 16, etc.

The amazon page had a two PC / three monitor model for something north of $300.

I overlooked that one. I think I’ve settled on needing a docking station compatible between both machines. This way when I swap machines, the peripherals go along with it.

So, it looks like StarTech had a Dual Laptop KVM Dock product…reviews on it are mixed.

But it only handles two monitors

My solution to a similar dilemma was to procure an enormous logically-divisible 4K monitor and use a USB switch for the input peripherals. The monitor is slightly lacking in that it’s limited to 1, 2, or 4 logical displays. I’d much prefer 3 displays (two 1920x1080, one 3840x1080) so I can allocate a single 1920x1080 display for the home workstation and a 1920x1080 + 3840x1080 for the work laptop during the workday; instead I consume 3 HDMI inputs with one being fed by a USB adaptor. The monitor is toggled to the mosaic arrangement at the start of the workday, the USB switch changes focus often as I tab between machines, and at the end of the workday I shut down the laptop and toggle the monitor to 4K for my home workstation.

However, if you’re toggling multiple physical monitors I can appreciate that this approach isn’t so viable.

That’s a cool consideration…

So, I could not find a good solution. I’ve ended up buying a USB-C multi monitor dock and I just swap out the laptops at the end of the day.

Does anyone have a recommendation on a USB-C switch? It would be nice to not have to swap out the machines each day.

PSA - I started with an HP G5 dock, but ultimately ended up with a Dell D6000. The G5 cannot handle 3 monitors AND full USB 3 throughout. You have to choose one or the other in the dock’s BIOS. Additionally, the G5 would not push full resolution in my 3rd monitor when connected to my SB3, but had no issue with the 3rd monitor from my work HP laptop. The Dell D6000 has no issues for either machine.

Apparently, USB-C A/B switches do not exist yet…and the USB 3 switches in the price ranges of $20 - $70 do not work.