Avocent Outlook 180DX Installation and maintenance instructions

Installer/User Guide
OutLook 180DX

INSTRUCTIONS
This symbol is intended to alert the user to the presence of important operating and
maintenance (servicing) instructions in the literature accompanying the appliance.
DANGEROUS VOLTAGE
This symbol is intended to alert the user to the presence of uninsulated
“dangerous voltage” within the product’s enclosure that may be of sufficient
magnitude to constitute a risk of electric shock to persons.
POWER OFF
This symbol indicates the principal on/off switch is in the off position.
POWER ON
This symbol indicates the principal on/off switch is in the on position.
PROTECTIVE GROUNDING TERMINAL
This symbol indicates a terminal which must be connected to earth ground
prior to making any other connections to the equipment.

OutLook 180DX
Installer/User Guide
Avocent, the Avocent logo and “The Power of Being There” are
trademarks of Avocent Corporation. OutLook and OSCAR are
registered trademark of Apex Inc. All other marks are trademarks
or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
© 2001 Avocent Corporation. All rights reserved.

USA Notification
Warning: Changes or modifications to this unit not expressly approved by the party
responsible for compliance could void the user's authority to operate the equipment.
Note: This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class
A digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed
to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference when the equipment is
operated in a commercial environment. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate
radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instruction
manual, may cause harmful interference to radio communications. Operation of this
equipment in a residential area is likely to cause harmful interference in which case the
user will be required to correct the interference at his own expense.
Canadian Notification
This digital apparatus does not exceed the Class A limits for radio noise emissions
from digital apparatus set out in the Radio Interference Regulations of the Canadian
Department of Communications.
Le présent appareil numérique n’émet pas de bruits radioélectriques dépassant les
limites applicables aux appareils numériques de la classe A prescrites dans le Règlement
sur le brouillage radioélectrique édicté par le Ministère des Communications du Canada.
Japanese Notification
Agency Approvals
UL 1950, CSA C22. 2 No. 950, EN60950, IEC 60950
FCC part 15A, EN55022, EN55024

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Product Overview
Features and Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Safety Precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Chapter 2: Installation
Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Rack Mounting your OutLook 180DX Unit . . . . . . 9
Installing an OutLook 180DX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Installing a Multiple Switch System . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Powering up the OutLook Switch System . . . . . . . 16
Chapter 3: Basic Operations
Viewing and Selecting Ports and Servers . . . . . . . . 19
Setting up OSCAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Using Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Resetting your Keyboard and Mouse . . . . . . . . . . 30
Displaying Version Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Sending the Print Screen Keystroke . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Chapter 4: Advanced Operations
Assigning Device Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Accessing OSCAR at a Secondary Switch . . . . . . . 36
Broadcasting to Cascaded Configurations . . . . . . 36
Appendices
Appendix A: FLASH Upgrades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Appendix B: Technical Specifications . . . . . . . . . . 42
Appendix C: Technical Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Appendix D: Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Contents
1
Product Overview
Features and Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Safety Precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 1: Product Overview 3
Chapter 1: Product Overview
Features and Benefits
The Avocent OutLook 180DX switch system consists of the user station (your
keyboard, monitor and mouse), the switch unit and the attached servers. You
can connect additional, or secondary, switches to the primary OutLook switch
(called cascading) to expand the 180DX system to 64 servers. This flexibility
allows you to add capacity as your data center grows.
Figure 1.1: OutLook 180DX Model
OSCAR user interface
OutLook switches are equipped with OSCAR, our patented On-Screen
Configuration and Activity Reporting interface. OSCAR features intuitive
menus to configure your switch system and select computers. Computers can
be identified by a unique name or port number, allowing you to select server
names that make sense to you.
Multiplatform support
The OutLook 180DX supports PS/2 and expands to support multiple platforms
with adaptors for Apple, Sun, Unix, IBM RS/6000, HP 9000 and serial devices.
Switch easily across platforms with OSCAR.
Security
Protect your system with a screen saver password. After a user-defined time,
the screen saver mode will engage. Access is prohibited until the appropriate
password is entered to reactivate the system.
Quality video support
The OutLook 180DX supports analog VGA, SVGA and XGA video. The
resolution you can achieve depends upon the length of cable separating your
switch and servers. Achieve resolutions of up to 1600 x 1200 with a 7 foot cable
and up to 800 x 600 with a 50 foot cable.
Plug and Play
The OutLook system supports Display Data Channel Plug and Play, which
automates configuration of the monitor and is compliant with the VESA
DDC2B standard.
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4 OutLook 180DX Installer/User Guide
FLASH upgradable
The OutLook 180DX is FLASH upgradable. This allows you to update your
firmware at any time through a simple serial connection to ensure that your
OutLook system is always running the most current version available.
Built-in scanning capabilities
A built-in scanning feature allows you to automatically monitor, or scan,
connected computers without intervention. When keyboard activity is
detected, scanning is suspended until all activity stops. Scanning then resumes
with the next server in sequence.
Cascading expansion
Each OutLook 180DX switch supports up to eight directly attached servers. If
more than eight are needed, multiple units can be cascaded together with one
unit designated as the primary switch and additional units connected to it as
secondary switches. This extra cascade of units allows you to attach up to 64
servers in one system.
Figure 1.2: Example OutLook Configuration