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I have a desktop and a laptop. Between the two of those I'd like to share 3 monitors.

My desktop has 3 video outputs that I can hook up directly to the monitors and for the laptop I use a j5 Create docking station. This allows me to use type-c connection from my laptop to the docking station and from there I have 3 monitor outputs.

Currently when I want to switch between the two I have to unhook the monitor cables for one source and hook up the monitor cables for the other source.

It really only takes me about 5 minutes to do, but it is tedious and sometimes I would like to swap back and forth quickly.

I am hoping someone else has a solution where I can just flip a toggle or something. I am thinking some sort of KVM but can't seem to find anyhting.

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I’m assuming that you have a keyboard/mouse that you want to share between the desktop and laptop using the 3 monitors. If this is wrong, please disregard my answer.

I had a similar problem where I wanted to share 2 monitors between my laptop and work desktop, while using the same mouse and keyboard for both computers. Patrick Bailey (the Whiteboard Coder) posted a video on YouTube that helped me to accomplish this. (His video is here: https://youtu.be/qfUINkbu9Ss).

Following those tips, I used a Sabrent USB 2.0 Sharing Switch and a cheap 4 port hub to connect the keyboard and mouse to both computers. This allows me to toggle the sharing-switch to share the mouse and keyboard between the 2 computers.

For the video sharing… my monitors have both HDMI and DisplayPort input ports. This allowed me to connect the 2 Display Port outputs from the desktop to the Display Port inputs on the monitors. For the laptop, I used a cheap usb-c docking station with dual HDMI outputs to connect it to the monitors’ HDMI inputs. Since the desktop and laptop are sending different output sources to the monitors, I can just switch the monitor input source directly with the monitors’ input buttons – rather than having to physically switch the cables.

Here’s another superuser post where something similar was mentioned: https://superuser.com/a/1068232/1647601.

Hope this helps to give you some ideas for solving your problem. Good luck!

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  • Great advice, I'll need to get new monitors, but so far this is the best solution for me.
    – Dukebaby
    Commented May 12, 2022 at 22:03
  • My current monitors have DVI and VGA inputs. I bought some VGA cables and this solution totally works for me and for only $15! Thank you!
    – Dukebaby
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 17:40
  • You're welcome, Dukebaby. I'm glad you were able to find a way to make it work for you. :-)
    – mblackonline
    Commented May 25, 2022 at 19:57
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I have a desktop which I have daisychained using 3 display port cables.

1 Display Port going out of my desktop into my main monitor. This then has two DP Out cables going into the additional two monitors.

If I was to disconnect the DP Cable in my desktop and plug that into my laptop (which also has DP connection) this would allow my monitors to display my laptop screen.

Is this something you can do?

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  • Unfortunately this won't work for me, but good advice.
    – Dukebaby
    Commented May 12, 2022 at 22:03

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