Specifications

APPENDIX A: Cable and Connector Guidelines

Appendix A:

Cable and Connector Guidelines

IMPORTANT NOTE

The maximum cable lengths supported vary widely between devices and

cables. It might be possible to use cables that are longer than those

specified below with certain PCs and peripherals, but this cannot be

guaranteed. If you experience problems, try using shorter cables.

A.1 Cabling: Keyboard, Monitor, and Mouse to ServSwitch Wizard Pro

All of the shared devices plug directly into the relevant ports at the rear of the

ServSwitch Wizard Pro. If you use a PC/AT style keyboard you will need a PC/AT

(5-pin DIN female) to PS/2 (6-pin mini-DIN male) adapter. (These are readily

available from Black Box.)

If you are not using the optional power supply, these peripherals’ cables should

be no longer than 6 ft. (2 m). If you are using the power supply, you can use User

Extension Cables to increase the distance from ServSwitch Wizard Pro to your

peripherals to as much as 30 ft. (9.1 m; see Section 3.3); many keyboards and

mice will operate at distances up to 65 ft. (20 m), but do not count on this.

A.2 Cabling: ServSwitch Wizard Pro to PCs

Video: HD15 male to HD15 male, wired as a standard VGA PC-to-monitor cable.

There are two types commonly available. The better type, which will carry video

very well, are constructed with coaxial cable cores. The not-so-good type—cheaper

cable more suited for data communication—is often used, but can degrade video

quality, especially over longer distances. Avoid using “data cables” longer than

6 ft./2 meters unless video quality is not important in your application.

If you are not using the optional power supply, the video-extension cable should

be no longer than 10 ft. (3 m) in any situation. If you are using the power supply,

you might be able to run good coaxial video cables as far as 165 ft. (50 m) with

little loss of video quality, but the longest we recommend going—unless you use

the ServSwitch Duo Extender (KV6EXT; see its manual for details)—is 100 ft.

(30.5 m) over the video strand of our CPU Extension Cables (see Section 3.3).