Some of the best workstation upgrades don’t add anything to the desk — they take things away. The Black Box ServSwitch Wizard SRX KVM Extender (ACU5502A-R3) lets you move the noisy, heat-generating PC out of the room entirely, while keeping full dual-monitor DVI-D video, USB peripherals, and audio right at the user’s fingertips, up to 196 feet from the actual machine.

Whether you’re building out a control room, a broadcast studio, a hospital imaging suite, or a secure ops center, this extender solves a real, practical problem: how do you deliver a clean, high-performance workstation experience without the fans, heat, and noise of a full tower sitting under the desk? Let’s dig into the specs, see where it shines, and cover how to get pricing.

Why Facilities Teams Reach for It

The ACU5502A-R3 uses CAT6a cable to extend keyboard, mouse, and uncompressed single-link DVI-D video up to 196 feet at full 1920×1200 60Hz resolution, or up to 3840×2400 at 17Hz for higher-resolution needs. Because the extender delivers full DVI digital video without compression or conversion, you get pure video displays with no loss of quality — a critical requirement for professional graphics users in fields like broadcast, medical imaging, architecture, and CAD.

Full Data Sheet

How It Performs

Here’s a friendly look at what matters most when evaluating a KVM extender for demanding professional environments.

Popular Use Cases

The Case for Getting the PC Out of the Room

There’s a simple but powerful idea behind KVM extension: the person doesn’t need the computer nearby — they just need the keyboard, mouse, video, and audio nearby. Everything else — the fans, the heat, the noise, the vulnerability to tampering or accidental damage — can live somewhere else entirely, whether that’s a climate-controlled equipment closet, a centralized server room, or a secured rack down the hall.

That matters enormously in environments where noise and heat are genuine problems: broadcast studios where fan noise can bleed into audio recordings, medical imaging suites where a clean, controlled environment is part of the workflow, and control rooms where operators need an unobstructed, uncluttered desk. Moving the compute hardware out of the room and extending only the video, USB, and audio solves all of that at once — without asking the end user to give up any functionality.

The uncompressed, pure-digital DVI-D signal is a key differentiator here. Many lower-cost extenders rely on compression to stretch distance, which introduces latency and can degrade fine visual detail — a real problem for CAD work, medical imaging, or any application where pixel-level accuracy actually matters. By keeping the video signal fully uncompressed across the extension run, the ACU5502A-R3 ensures what’s displayed on the remote monitor is exactly what the source machine is outputting, with zero compromise.

And because the local unit can be interface-powered directly from the connected PC (when output doesn’t exceed 500mA), installation can be as simple as running cable and plugging in — no separate power brick required at the source end in many setups. Combined with rackmount density of up to 16 units per chassis, that makes scaling from a single extended workstation to a full multi-seat control room a straightforward, well-supported process.

Ready to Extend Your Workstations?

Pricing can vary based on quantity, whether you need the companion rackmount chassis or additional power supplies, and current distributor inventory. Our team can help you get accurate, current numbers for your deployment.

Pricing and availability may vary by reseller — confirm current details with your Black Box-authorized partner before ordering.