Switching between laptop and desktop in one setup?

[DeagleMaster]

Ii have a laptop that I use for school work and a desktop that I use for gaming and other hardware intensive tasks. I am trying to figure out how I could connect my laptop to the same two monitors, keyboard and mouse as my desktop without having to unplug and plug back in everything each time.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

What laptop? 
If it has a tb3/4 port, you could use a single wire for all of that, plus one for charging

[connorpiper]

Right off the top of my head is a feature of some Dell monitors. It allows you connect two display inputs to the monitor, and one set of KB/Mouse to the monitor. Each computer has a USB connection to the monitor for the USB hub. When you switch inputs the USB hub switches outputs from one computer to the next. 

 

EDIT: Found one such monitor with the feature, I'm sure there are more models. https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-ultrasharp-27-usb-c-hub-monitor-u2722de/apd/210-ayzg/monitors-monitor-accessories
This monitor also transfers the LAN connection between each PC. 

[SupaKomputa]

Run remote desktop from the laptop to the PC, make sure its connected with lan.

[Kisai]

30 minutes ago, DeagleMaster said:

Ii have a laptop that I use for school work and a desktop that I use for gaming and other hardware intensive tasks. I am trying to figure out how I could connect my laptop to the same two monitors, keyboard and mouse as my desktop without having to unplug and plug back in everything each time.

Well, it's a laptop, you're going to have to unplug something.

 

The more or less easiest way to do this is to actually get a KVM, A docking station, or have monitors that have a built in USB Hub and two inputs.

 

An auto-switch KVM is the more ideal situation without resorting to a software KVM, RDP, or NDI remote desktop.

 

Usually an auto-switch will switch USB peripherals (keyboard/mouse only usually) with switching machines.

 

A docking station is the next best option if both devices will output video over USB-c or Thunderbolt. If your desktop supports HDMI/DP over USB-C then you can use the same laptop docking station for your desktop and laptop. Just swap the usb-c cable over.

 

The next option, is probably the lowest cost option, just leave cables plugged into the second input of both monitors and usb cables in their hubs, and move the usb cable between the machines as you need it.

 

The last option here is what I used at the office for one unit that had a desktop and a laptop dock in it. Unfortunately staff tend to not understand this setup and unplug the desktop to use the laptop dock rather than move the USB cable connected to the monitor that has the keyboard and mouse on it.

 

Likewise, most desktops do not support USB-C video output unless the GPU itself has usb-c output.

 

Personally, I would suggest RDP or NDI or any number of remote desktop software's to use both machines and just use the more powerful device for everything, only connecting to the weaker machine as needed. 

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Peripherals

***

 

There are multiple ways to achieve this. One would be using KVM where you get almost pure experience. But those things are rare and expensive when you go over 1080p60.

 

I have similar situation. For now and until I get dock from work, I have USB3 hub from desktop as base. There connected USB2 hub (both are powered btw) as I have 6x USB devices I need (mouse, keyboard, mic, webcam, numpad and DAC). I can just switch that USB2 cable and have everything working on both. Did it just today, no issues. For monitors... Well, main has 3 inputs, VGA, HDMI and DVI. Laptops has only HDMI for output. So easy choice there. Second monitor has VGA and DVI. And if I can just find my VGA cable, I can get that fairly easily sorted. That is, after that dock arrives. Now its just HDMI, power and USB to laptop, after dock it will be switching one USB-C and inputs for monitors.