PC Through Docking Station

[JuanCarlosFandango]

Morning all. I have a home office with 2 monitors and a PC. I would like to get a docking station so I and family members can plug in laptops or phones and and use the monitors, mouse and keyboard from them which all seems straightforward enough. The difficulty seems to be the PC. Ideally I'd like to be able to just plug that into the dock as another device but it seems this isn't straightforward as there isn't a USB C port on the PC. I will be adding a printer soon too although I don't think that's a problem as they just work off wifi/NFC(?)

I'm sure there is a way to do this but so far I haven't found a definitive answer. Any suggestions much appreciated.

[Inertiatic]

Add a USB-C expansion card?

[JuanCarlosFandango]

Yeah, that was what I was looking at but from what I've read it only seems to work wirh some cards, and can also disable other USB ports on the computer.

[Mr Pointy]

Look for "docking switch with KVM":

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anker-Docking-Station-Des...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AV-Access-Charging-Ethern...

The first one is curently unavailable but it will give you an idea of what to search for.

[KernowSid]

I bought a KVM, with my PC as one input, and the dock the other.

Means I can share the keyboard/mouse and monitors with my PC, and any laptops etc connected via the dock.

[captain_cynic]

If your monitor has multiple HDMI inputs you don't really need one. I've two computers plugged into my monitors. One of my monitors even has a KVM function.

Otherwise it's a KVM switch you're looking for. You can put a docking station on the end of that. Cheaper and easier than trying to make a desktop work through a docking station.

[JuanCarlosFandango]

Good info, thanks! Only one HDMI input per monitor so it looks like a dock and a KVM switch is the way to go, or one combined unit. How does the KVM connect to the computer?

However investigating this my monitors are actually connected by an old style VGA connector, so does that mean I could just use the monitor to switch between inputs? Only problem then is mouse and keyboard.