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Comment by anyfoo | Hacker News Reader

Relatedly, does anyone have any solution for switching a 5k LG monitor between two Macs? There seems to be only a single KVM switch that does that, and it's around $500. It also does not switch one Thunderbolt, but two Display Ports, so it seems that you would additionally need a bunch of adapters which split the USB-C Thunderbolt cable into two Display Port connections, and back together at the other end.

Note that there seem to be more solutions for 4k, but it's my understanding that those don't work for 5k.

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Use a DP 1.4 switch: https://www.amazon.com/Angusplay-DisplayPort-Switch-Bidirect...

I tried ConnectPro's DP 1.4 KVM and the display blacked out constantly in MacOS. Friends who purchased the same KVM ran into the same issue with displays that push DP spec to the limit like 3440x1440@144.

The switch I shared works just fine. From time to time (once every 1-2 months maybe) the display blacks out for a second but a computer restart does the trick, or reconnecting cables. Also make sure to get HBR3 displayport certified cables.

Just to confirm, this does work with LG 5k monitors? The resolution there is 5120x2880, which is significantly more (the vertical resolution alone is doubled, and then some for the horizontal), but I don't know the refresh rate, so the bandwidth could still be similar maybe.

EDIT: I'm also wondering, the only switch I know to be working uses two display port cables to the monitor (which I'd have to adapt to one Thunderbolt 3 instead), while your device only uses one. That doesn't bode well...

Not sure:

irb(main):003:0> 5120288060 > 34401440144 => true

It won't work with the LG Ultrafine 5k, which requires a Thunderbolt connection to run at full resolution, and behind-the-scenes is a tiled pair of DP1.2 displays.

It ought to work with a DisplayPort 1.4 5k, though there aren't many of those.

Thanks. So as far as I can tell, that ridiculously expensive switch is still the only option (if even, I wasn't able to fully confirm), and nowhere near worth the cost vs. just physically swapping the cable between computers.

If you aren't switching between your computers too often, you can just get a USB hub like this and switch between display inputs from your monitor: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083JKDNRJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

My monitor only has a single input, that's the problem I'm trying to solve. I don't need to switch USB.

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