I have two computers: one is my ATX gaming PC, and the other is my mini ITX workstation/editing PC. I’ve tried various methods to control both of them, but I’ve finally come across the ultimate solution (in theory): the TESmart DKS202-M24 KVM switch which is a 2 PC, 2 monitor 8K (60Hz/60FPS) switch.

I tested this switch out for almost a month, using it every day as part of my normal two PC setup, to see exactly what I thought about it. This KVM switch was sent to me by TESmart, but this is a fully independent video (I am free to critize it, and I do raise vairous points throughout this video). However if you were interested in this switch, or any other TESmart products, you can get 10% off sitewide by using voucher code TES-TRISTAN10 on the TESmart website.

(Link to direct YouTube video)

If you prefer text over video, please read on for the guide/transcript version of this video.

Video Transcript And Guide

Hey everyone! If you watched my videos last year, you’ll know that I have two computers. But actually, the way I was switching between those two computers wasn’t very good. That’s because I started out buying a really cheap budget KVM Switch, which didn’t have EDID emulation support. And as a result, switching between the two computers was slow and buggy.

I then moved on to a method involving USB3 hubs and HDMI extension cables and things like that, and surprisingly, that didn’t work out too well for me either. So as a result, I’m really excited for the prospect of this KVM switch from TESmart. And I say “the prospect” because I’ve only received this switch yesterday, and I’m not going to do the usual YouTuber thing of actually getting the product, spending a day setting it up, and then doing a video and hitting publish. What I’m actually going to do is slightly different, and I’ll talk about that in just a minute.

But firstly, I wanted to talk about the product features of this KVM Switch, ‘cause on paper it is perfect for me. I’m a gamer, programmer, and a content creator, and I’m constantly switching between my two computers. So I’m really hoping this KVM switch will work out perfectly for me.

This KVM switch has a headphone jack, which is quite useful, and then two blue ports as I call them—USB 3.0. So that’s gen one, so 5GB speeds. It also supports a keyboard, a mouse, and 8K goodness. Now, I don’t have 8K monitors. I’ve only got two 4K monitors, but this KVM switch supports up to 144 hertz, which is really good. And then in the back, as you can see there, you can put in two DisplayPort cables and then go to two monitors also via DisplayPort. And it’s also got an Ethernet port, but as we’ll discuss later, that only supports 1 gig. So you would need a separate network switch if you wanted like 10 gig speeds or something like that.

This KVM switch also has G-Sync support, FreeSync support, FEC, DSC, and other TLAs, I’m sure. So quite a lot of different features, and it also supports EDID emulation, as you’d probably expect with a KVM switch of this price range. But what that means in practice is, when you’re switching between two computers, it’s going to keep your programs and your desktop icons and your display settings, like your refresh rates, exactly the same. You’re not going to have any issues switching between them. So that sounds quite promising.

Before we go any further though, I need to be clear: TESmart did reach out to me after watching my epic fails last year, and they said, “Would you like to actually try out this KVM switch for us?” And I said, “Yes please! I badly need a good quality KVM switch, and I’m too cheap to actually buy this particular product.”

I didn’t quite say that, and they didn’t quite say about epic fails either, but they did reach out to me. However, I’m not under contract to say nice things about this product. I’m not being paid for this video, other than receiving this KVM switch, of course. I got to be upfront about that. But actually, I do really need a good quality KVM switch, and I’m hoping this will work out well for me.

And that’s why in the intro I mentioned I’m going to do things slightly differently. Instead of just, you know, getting this product and then doing you all a disservice by literally doing a video in one day and hitting publish, I’m actually going to test this out for at least a few weeks or a month, maybe more, and then I’m actually going to come back to this video and actually show my final thoughts on the product. But next, I’m actually going to set this up with my two computer, two monitor setup. So let’s take a look at that.

So, like a noob, I actually store my computers on the floor, and as a result, I needed to run all of my cables actually back up into the desk where I was going to store my KVM switch. And I started off with the quick wins, which was my keyboard and mouse—plugging them in was easy—but what wasn’t easy was actually managing the Medusa’s hair level of cables. So four DisplayPort cables, and then two USB 3 cables for the actual control and things like that. And then I tried running it up my existing PVC trunking, and it didn’t fit. There wasn’t enough room.

So in the end, I actually upgraded the size of the PVC trunking to a bit of a thicker boy trunking, and then I could actually fit all the cables in, as you can see there. Next up, I then had to actually plug everything in, and that looks easy, but actually there’s so many cables in the back that it is actually a little bit of a faff. But anyway, I start off with plugging in the USB 3 cables, and then move on to the DisplayPort cables. And that’s the actual inputs coming from the computers. I haven’t actually done the outputs yet or the Ethernet port, but that’s what it looks like just with the inputs.

Then, that’s me connecting one of the monitor cables up and then the Ethernet jack. Don’t know why I’m smacking it on the KVM switch, but yeah, plugging that in too. Then I need to plug things in on the computer side, and my mini ITX case, you got to plug in from the bottom, which is a little bit annoying—no jokes please—and then, yeah, putting the cables in there as you can see. So I did the two DisplayPort cables into the graphics card and then the USB cable. And then I did the same with my ATX gaming computer as well. So the DisplayPort cables there, but unfortunately, the USB 3 cable didn’t fit. I’ll talk about the lengths later, so I needed to buy an extension cable.

And with that in place, you can actually see it there. You got the USB 3 cable, my two DisplayPort cables from my ATX case on the left. They then go under my mini ITX system, and then, voila, it’s actually set up on my desk there. So you can see my KVM switch. I got various things going into it. I tested out with like an SD card reader, and that worked really well. I didn’t get any issues with my reader write speeds or anything like that. So next was a case of trying it out, and actually the switching worked okay. It took a few seconds, and then everything switched over okay.

So that’s all set up, and it seems to be working, which is a good first start. But I don’t want to just hit publish on the video. I’m going to go away for a month and actually try it out as a regular user, and then I’ll come back to you, which will seem like 10 seconds for you. It’s going to be a month for me, so let’s get going.

[time warp] Woah, that was weird, man! Kidding, kidding! Let’s just get on with the video.

Okay, so I’ve been using now the TESmart KVM switch, which is just here, for almost a month now. And actually, it’s pretty good. It’s been working really well for me. I’ve been able to switch between, you know, gaming and video editing when my boss isn’t looking /s! But actually, I’ve been able to do all of those things, and yeah, it’s been fairly flawless and doing all the things the KVM Switch should do. So that’s good, and that’s the high level.

And now I’m going to sort of nitpick one or two things that ideally I would have liked to see in this KVM switch, ‘cause it is quite expensive. And I’ll talk about the price towards the end of this video, but it is quite expensive. And so there were one or two things that I thought could have been slightly better.

Firstly, the KVM switch contains an Ethernet port, which is great because, you know, you don’t need a separate network switch to actually get internet connectivity between your two computers or laptops or whatever you’re using. So that’s a good thing that it has that. But actually it’s only stuck at 1GB speeds, which actually isn’t too bad, but obviously this is quite a premium KVM switch. And if you go out and buy like a premium motherboard, you’re going to get 2 and a half gig or 5 gig Ethernet. So actually, I think that, you know, the Ethernet port on this KVM switch should ideally be at least 2 and 1/2 gig or 5 gig as well.

I also have another issue with the Ethernet, or at least I think I do. What I sometimes see is occasional packet loss. So if I run a continuous ping or I download a game or something like that, sometimes the download gets temporarily interrupted for some unknown reason. And, you know, I don’t know exactly why this is. I have spoken to TESmart, and they’ve sent me over some suggestions, and it could be an issue with my Ethernet cable or something like that. But right now, I am seeing some packet loss with the KVM switches Ethernet port. So as a result, I’ve gone over to use just like a cheap TP-Link switch that I had lying around in my cupboard, and then the pings and everything else seems a lot more stable. I have no packet loss at all. But I just want to be honest that it is an issue I’m having.

The next thing I wanted to discuss—and it’s a good thing, not a criticism—but it’s actually the switching speeds and the quality of switching between my two computers. It is really, really good. I think due to the fact that this switch supports so many different technologies and, crucially, has EDID emulation. What that means is, you know, if you switch from one computer to another, you’re not suddenly going to lose all of your programs and your refresh rates and things like that.

And as I mentioned earlier, I’ve not had any issue with actually switching between different games and then the video editing on my other computer, and then back to the games on the other computer. That’s all worked really flawlessly. I was thinking I’d have some issues with, you know, refresh rates in the game messing up and then the video editing software messing up, but actually didn’t. That is really, really impressive.

The next thing I wanted to discuss is the length of the cables, because obviously you get like two USB 3 cables that run from the KVM switch down to your computers, and then you get four DisplayPort cables. You know, two of them will run to one computer, and two of them will run to the other, and then back to the KVM switch. And actually, they’re all different lengths. I’ll show on the screen now—I mean, the power cable’s got quite good length—but I’ll show on the screen for the DisplayPort cable and the USB. And what you can see is, although they are a similar length, there is a bit of a difference. And yeah, it’s not too bad, you might argue, but what it actually did mean is, when I was setting up my two computers, the USB 3 cable, which is shorter than the DisplayPort cables, it wouldn’t actually reach my front ATX gaming computer. So then I needed to go out and buy an extension cable for that before I could fully set things up.

The next thing I wanted to talk about is the power consumption of the KVM switch because at idle, it uses around 3W, which is actually really good, I think. And then when you’re actually using like your two computers or computer laptop or whatever and switching between them, I’ve seen the KVM switch peak to around 7 or 8W, which considering everything the KVM switch is doing, I think that’s actually pretty good too. You know, I wouldn’t have any issues with running that 24/7, but I did also test actually turning the KVM switch off every night, and then the following day when I turned everything back on, it was fine. You know, it’s not like the KVM switch forgot its settings or anything like that.

The next thing I wanted to talk about is the actual physical design of the KVM switch, because it looks like it’ll be metal, especially on that front with the brushed effect, but it’s not—it’s all plastic. And actually, for such a premium product—it is quite expensive, after all—you would, in my opinion, expect for it to be metal. You know, it’s the same with network switches. You know, really budget ones are plastic, but the more expensive ones are metal. And actually, I had sort of half expected that. It wasn’t, which is a little bit of a pity, but it is good quality plastic, and the switch looks and feels like a premium product.

It also comes with little feet, which you’d expect, but actually they are good quality. Like, I’m trying to move my KVM switch now, and actually, you know, my monitors are moving, but not the actual KVM switch, because the feet are really good.

The one final thing I wanted to mention before I discuss the price and my very final thoughts is the actual lack of USB-C, because I think that it’s good that this has USB 3 ports. You know, it’s got two blue ports which are gen one, so 5GB speeds. And I think that’s probably enough, to be honest. But actually, I think it would be nice if it also had USB-C because, you know, I had a couple of comments—one person said about running a Steam Deck through this, another person saying about running a laptop through it—and it would be pretty nice if you could actually power those devices via USB-C. You know, if this really expensive KVM switch actually had a USB-C which outputted like 45W, that would be really, really convenient. You know, then you could charge your phone or Steam Deck or laptop or anything else, but unfortunately, the KVM Switch doesn’t have that, which I think is a pity. It would be nice if it had that.

So that’s just a general point, really, but actually the USB 3s on it are pretty good. You know, I’ve tested with a USB pen and an SD card reader, and I’ve also put those directly into my computers, and the transfer speeds are exactly the same. In other words, I’m not, you know, losing reader write speeds by using the USB 3 ports on the KVM switch. They seem to run just as fast as natively on my computer, so that is really good.

And that brings me to wrapping up and discussing the price, because this is not a cheap product, of course. It is quite a premium product. But actually, the fact it supports, you know, 12-bit color and 8K at 60Hz, or if you want to drop down to 4K, it supports 144 hertz, which is brilliant for gaming and stuff. I think, you know, that does sort of justify the price tag. But then, you know, it is a little bit frustrating that it doesn’t have things like, you know, 2 and 1/2 gig or 5 gig Ethernet and a metal housing and things like that.

So it’s not a cheap product or anything, but I don’t think it’s overpriced. I think it’s expensive but not overpriced, as Linus from LTT likes to say. I should say, though, there is a 10% off code. If you look in the comments in the description, there is a 10% off code if you wanted to use that. It applies throughout the TESmart website, so if you are interested in any of their products, you can use that.

But that pretty much wraps up my thoughts on things, which is that I do genuinely like this TESmart Switch. You know, I am actively using it every single day, and actually, I’ve been fairly happy with it. That’s just my thoughts on it. If you’ve got your own thoughts or comments, please let me know down in the comments. And other than that, if you enjoyed this video, please click the thumbs up button and please subscribe to see more videos like this.