-- LAN Box
Guide : Part 1
-- 6.01.2001
-- By: GideonX
-- Page: 1 2
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Since the creation of great multiplayer games like
Quake and Half-Life: Counter-Strike, a mass of the computing
population have came together and met to partake in what is called a
Local Area Network Party. Mostly called a LAN party, it
features a lot of computers and a lot of soda.
What normally happens is the participants arrive at
a central location where there are stations set up to accommodate
each individuals computer. After hooking into the local
network, the LAN go'er may partake in transferring or playing games
locally with each computer on the network. In layman's terms,
Joe Bob brings his computer over to his friend Joe Billy Bob and
plugs into his network. They open up Quake or whatever strikes them
silly and start fragging each other at incredible speeds.
Now the question is, there are usually a lot of
participants in a LAN party. Unless of course you consider
networking two computers together a LAN party, then this does not
apply. With all these boxes around, standing out with
something special would sure make your day. Not only will you
look good, but you can frag better! Kind of like how $150 basketball
shoes make you jump higher...anyway.
For more details on LAN parties, you can check out
one of the first sites I visited a while back, lanparty.com.
They have a nice site dedicated to this topic along with some guides
and tips to get you going.
Now the main topic of this guide is not to bore you
to death about setting up a LAN, but more on the idea of looking
real suave at one. Here is where we come in and help out by
creating the ultimate LAN box on a budget that actually looks good.
This guide will be split into 3 parts, each part will cover a
different part of modifying your case in easy to follow steps.
For our guide, the awesome folks at PCMods.com
donated some hardware to create this masterpiece. If you have
no idea who these guys are, check out an interview
we did with one of the founders of PCMods.com. All the parts
for creating this box is direct from their online shop, which
features great kits and accessories for modifying your case.
The total price for putting this box together comes
out to about $350. We could have chose a different case, but
we will discuss our reasons for it below. Here is the list for
our LAN Project box:
For our first part of the LAN Box Guide, we will be
focusing on putting in a window kit and fancying our case with an
easy to carry handle. The next two parts of the guide will
cover different areas of creating a good reliable box.
In our opinion, a LAN box needs to be light and easy
to carry. Therefore we went with a very light and reliable
case, one of the smaller Lian Li aluminum cases. A handle will
be fastened to the box to make it easier to carry. Sure beats
hugging this thing under your arm. All of this, plus it has to
look good! Here we go...
The
Window Kit > |
