hiya tom
humm...
donno... i've plugged and unplugged various mouse and kbs
all the time into lots-o-mbs and machines and have not
yet fried any mb... ( guess i can consider myself lucky...
on the other hand.... by tweeking XFConfig...
i have fried a monitor :-) ... nice smoke test..smells for dayz
a good scsi-based mb is $300 - $600 ...and similarly for disks
so they should have a budget for even el-cheapo KVMs...
no point to risk the main (expensive) servers that is gonna be offline
cause they didnt want to buy a 4-port kvm for $500
mb now days is $80.... for cheap ones... while good electrically
isolating kvm is $150-250 for 2 ports or more $$ for 8-16 porters
- worst still... switching with the kvm is no guarantee
that the mb likes the mouse that is connected to the
"main mouse port"... some systems hangs when the kb or mouse
is mechanially or manually "re-connected"...
( usually means get a "real mouse" not the $2.oo ps/mouse
( and sometiems bangs the cursor on the edge of the X11 screen
( like a rubberband.... and cant get the mouse "off the edges"
cheap (mechanical) kvm is $20....
- no different than pluygging/unplugging your kb manually
- different systems behaves differently wiuth various mouse/kb if
"murphys laws" is against ya today
have fun
alvin
On Mon, 18 Feb 2002, Tom Cook wrote:
> John Hasler wrote:
> >
> > Elizabeth Barham writes:
> > > I don't understand how it could possibly cause hardware damage.
> >
> > He means that unplugging the keyboard with the power on can cause damage.
> > He's right, though I have never personally seen it happen.
>
> Yes, hot-plugging PS/2 devices is a well known way of frying your
> motherboard. I personally have never seen it do damage, but am not
> really willing to risk my motherboard to find out whether the stories
> are true. AT kbs and serial mice are, of course, another story (a
> rather fault-tolerant story at that).
>
> Tom
