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I have a problem. It is a problem I try to hide out of sight and out of mind, one I try to pretend doesn't exist. But it does, and every so often it raises its ugly head to bite me. Most recently, I needed to replace an Ethernet switch as I needed more ports. As I unplugged the old switch, my monitor turned off. Why? Because under my desk I have a cable catastrophe. The mere act of unplugging the old switch had so disturbed and enraged the rat's nest of cables under my desk that in retaliation it decided to turn off my monitor.
So intertwined and confused is the mess beneath my desk that even the most mundane of acts—plugging in a new gadget, removing an old one, sometimes just even moving my feet—threatens to destroy everything.
TFA addresses the perennial problem of cable jungles. I use zip ties. What are the best solutions Soylentils have come up with, and what are their pros and cons?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday September 09 2015, @02:01PM
First off, do what I do: completely disconnect and remove EVERYTHING from your desk. Empty it and scatter, yet group your items on the floor/bed/table. Second, like a few others have said, buy velcro cable ties and possibly a cable tray or other organizer.
Okay. Now that you have an empty desk, start by looking at what you NEED to do most of your work. Monitor, keyboard, mouse, CPU case. Two power cords and some USB cabling if you use corded input devices. Route them neatly and tie them up. Advice: If you can, mount the outlet strip to the desk, possibly under it. The use a shelf or cable tray of some kind to get the power cords off the floor.
Look at the rest of the crap on your floor/bed/table and throw it out. Well, I kid but I always find that most of the shit piled on my desk over time is rarely used. At one point I switched to using headphones for gaming but I still had speakers with a sub. Why? So during my clean sweep, they went into a box and stowed away. When I went back to using speakers I did the reverse, the speakers came out and the headphones were put away. I also used to have two USB ATA disk enclosures each with a 120GB disk. It made no sense when 1TB was under a hundred bucks and they didn't need to be portable. So I bought a 1TB, installed it in my case and moved everything from those two disks to the new internal. More free space and four fewer wires. Another trick? Use splitter style IEC cords for multi monitor setups. This place has close to every type of power cord and accessory you can possibly ever need: http://www.stayonline.com/5-15-c13-splitter-cords.aspx [stayonline.com]. I bought the 18AWG, 6 foot IEC cord with twin 24" legs for my dual monitor setup. Eliminated one more cord on the floor.
My networking setup is a cluttered mess and has way too many wall warts. Router, Modem, low power Linux server and switch. I moved them off my desk and to a table next to it. They were less intrusive yet accessible and I gave them their own outlet strip and 1 foot cords to deal with the damn wall warts.