Black Box CATx manual Maximize your control, Simple server selection, Sight and sound support

color drift that can sometimes happen on long UTP cable runs. To learn more about skew compensation, see “Technically Speaking” below.

In addition, the switch supports Display Data Channel (DDC) emulation. It enables your monitor to communicate with the attached CPUs’ video cards and configure the CPUs’ video drivers automatically at bootup.

Maximize your control.

Although each ServSwitch™ CX with IP supports up to 16 or

24 directly connected servers, this is by no means the limit— you can daisychain switches to control up to 128 host servers. You can cascade up to three levels deep with servers situated at any level within the cascade tree.

Simple server selection.

Whether you’re working at a user station or the local analog console port in the server room, you can select a server to access and control via on-screen menus or hotkeys. On- screen menus make server selection simple because you can give each server a name that makes sense to you.

Sight and sound support.

The ServSwitch CX with IP provides super-sharp resolutions up to 1900 x 1440 for all users up to 164 feet (50 m) away. And up to 984.2 feet (300 m) away, the CX displays 1024 x 1280 video resolution. By choosing a SAM with audio, you add support for stereo speakers, enabling you to hear audible alerts.

Take charge with your power.

The ServSwitch CX with IP has a power control port that enables a remote user to reset one or more power switches in the host system. Plus, dual power connectors enable the CX to draw power from its included wallmount adapter or from an optional redundant power supply if there’s a power failure.

Ready right now—and for the future.

The switch comes complete with rackmounting hardware to install the switch in any open 1U of rack space in your server room. It can also be flash upgraded, so it’s practically obsolescence-proof.

Technically Speaking

UTP cable and color drift.

UTP cable is often used with video or KVM extenders to extend the reach of a video signal. It’s popular for this applica- tion because it’s lightweight, easy to handle, and inexpensive. But when you transmit video over long stretches of twisted- pair cable, you sometimes run into a phenomenon called color drift or color split.

Color drift shows up as that annoying colored shadow you occasionally see around objects on a video screen. It sometimes happens with UTP cable because the pairs of wire in the cable are twisted at slightly different rates to reduce crosstalk between pairs. Because of these differences between wire pairs, video signals for different colors often travel different distances before they reach the remote receiver. When one color signal arrives behind the others because its wire is longer, you get that red, green, or blue shadow around the objects on your video screen.

UTP cable varies widely by manufacturer, so before installing video extenders, it’s difficult to determine whether or not you’re going to have a color drift problem. You’re more likely to experience color drift with higher grades (CAT5e or CAT6) of cable, on longer cable runs, and on high- resolution screens.

If you experience color drift, there are several possible solutions. You can use a shorter length of cable, switch from CAT5e or CAT6 cable to CAT5 cable, use a lower screen resolution, or use a video skew compensator.

A video skew compensator removes color drift by delaying some color signals to compensate for differences in wire pairs.

9/11/2007	724-746-5500	blackbox.com
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