How to make Multi Monitor cable's look aesthetically pleasing

[NinthTurtle1034]

Hi, I'm looking for some advice regarding my cable management for my monitors. I have 4 screens mounted to a arm on my desk and all the cables going to the monitors looks a bit messy. Each monitor has a power, HDMI and DisplayPort cable going to it with one of the screens also having a VGA cable for my server. I use this setup for my gaming PC over DisplayPort and my laptop dock over HDMI. I know not all of my cables are quite long enough which doesn't really help matters but when I have squashed them all together they are so bulky that they are very difficult to cable manage.

I'm wondering if anyone's got any tips on how to measure what length cables are right for my setup and/or any tips on consolidating cables? maybe I could use Y splitters on the monitor power for the top and bottom monitors so I only have two power cables trailing down instead of one, I'm not sure if anyone makes Y splitters for HDMI or DisplayPort to a reliable quality - plus I'd still want equal terminations at each end as I have more than enough ports. I do have an Ikea cable tray under my desk which is useful if a bit restrictive.

[manikyath]

First off.. you buy cables that are long enough. you cant do anything if the cable wont reach if it's routed nicely.

 

past that.. route each cable individually along the same path. use a cable management clamp or something similar at every 'corner', so that everything stays together. when you run each cable one by one along the same path it becomes one thick 'bunch' of cable, but it's easier to manage like that.

 

for the power... just mount a power bar behind the displays to the pole, and strap the cables up neat and tidy.

[Thomas4]

A bit more of work, but I've seen a picture where the guy made a T-shaped conduit from plastic pipe, and temporarily attached it to the wall directly behind the monitor, where he drill holes in the pipe so that the cables would come straight out to the monitor.

He then removed the pipe, ran the cables through, and hooked everything back up.

His plan is to next hide the exposed cables from each monitors in a sleeve, but when the photo was taken he hadn't gotten that far.

[NinthTurtle1034]

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

First off.. you buy cables that are long enough. you cant do anything if the cable wont reach if it's routed nicely.

 

past that.. route each cable individually along the same path. use a cable management clamp or something similar at every 'corner', so that everything stays together. when you run each cable one by one along the same path it becomes one thick 'bunch' of cable, but it's easier to manage like that.

 

for the power... just mount a power bar behind the displays to the pole, and strap the cables up neat and tidy.

To your first point: Fair enough , Any tips on measuring cable lengths? I always end up with cables that are too short (if only slightly) or too long. The later whilst useful to some extent makes tidying them up under the desk a pain.

To your second point: Is there any general purpose cable clips - a bit like what cable mod with their GPU extensions - that might be useful for bunching the cables together in a somewhat orderly way. I swear I've seen something like that in the past but I'm not sure if there's any that would be big enough to hold thick power cables or if they are designed more for small phone charger sized cables.

To your third point: That's really not a bad idea. My first thought was 'power bar' brings to mind something designed for a server rack which wouldn't be much help however I then realized the rack mount holes could be useful for attaching the bar to the arm. My next slight issue with this is my arm lets my monitors slide along the rail if I need to move them, if I starp a power bar along it I might be able to move the monitors so freely

54 minutes ago, Thomas4 said:

A bit more of work, but I've seen a picture where the guy made a T-shaped conduit from plastic pipe, and temporarily attached it to the wall directly behind the monitor, where he drill holes in the pipe so that the cables would come straight out to the monitor.

He then removed the pipe, ran the cables through, and hooked everything back up.

His plan is to next hide the exposed cables from each monitors in a sleeve, but when the photo was taken he hadn't gotten that far.

Was the final pipe mounted to the wall? I don't think I want to mount anything to the wall partly why I didn't go with a wall mounted arm but my arm has notches in the vertical arm so I could get some compression fittings which slide in and then expand out to grip the arm.

 

Thanks both for your suggestions