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"Lanning"

Right, anyone who reads my posts once in a while (so about 3 of you then) should know that I’m a big fan of LAN gaming – servers full of LPBs fragging away in to the night, preferably with some good music, food, plenty of mates and a nice widescreen TV, complete with PS2 and Dreamcast for the occasional break.

Despite hounding MPUK and various local establishments, no-one seems willing to give a LAN in this area a try. “Fair enough”, I thought. “If you can’t be bothered, then I’ll do it”. I’ve set up LANs, I’ve set up small ones at my house even, so why shouldn’t I be able to do this…

Basically, I’m looking for any advice you could offer – anyone who’s been to a LAN, what did you enjoy? What did you like about it, and what are some common faults you’ve found…Anyone who has organised one themselves at some point, what particular problems did you face?

Specifically regarding one area which I’m concerned about, what power supply issues should I be aware of? I don’t know too much about circuits (although I’m taking my electronics course at the moment, picking up a bit more), I just don’t want the circuit breakers to kick in half-way through the event and cut everyone’s games short.

I’m fine with small-scale setups, but anything beyond about 6 is unchartered territory for me. 16 PCs and monitors in one room, along with TV, sound setup, and whatever force feedback peripherals people may bring, are sure to cause problems on a normal circuit – does anyone know what I should be looking for in a venue to prevent such problems? Small villages aren’t great for event halls, there are a few but they’re not very advanced locations, I wouldn’t trust the power supply personally. Alternatively, what other solutions could I look at? Small generators?

I’m pretty much ok as far as knowing what hardware I need, I have the equipment for the server and some of the networking, but I’m still looking for this hub. Like I said, my budget isn’t massive, I’m only 14 – even getting the trust to run it is an achievement for me, but I can’t go past a few hundred quid for the whole thing really.

Needless to say, anyone from SR in north Essex is welcome…and cheers in advance for any help.

Didn't I explain this once? Ah well, more proof that I can't do guides..Ok, I'll try one here, setting up 3 PCs to share a single internet connection...

Take the PC that you want to use as the gateway (the one with the modem) and plug it in to the phonline. Set its internal IP address as 192.168.1.1, and enable internet connection sharing - much easier to do this using a version of Win2k.

Plug all three machines in to the hub, so you have 3 on the hub and one with the internet connection as well. Set the other two machines up as follows:

Internal IP: 192.168.1.2 (192.168.1.3 for the third)
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1

This tells them to use the machine you set up earlier (192.168.1.1) to connect to the internet, and Windows should therefore request all access to the internet via your gateway.

Right, hopefully that was a bit clearer...if not, tell me.

There's an idea, how about a place for guides and requests like these...a series of "howto"s, written by us to cover various aspects of PCs and the internet..

I only want to mess about with LANs at home, not professionally.

I've got a few PCs knocking about and one phone socket. For them all to be able to connect to the internet, I give the hub the IP address and plug them all in to that?

Do I need one installed with WinNT/Win2K server, or can they all be clients?


thanks for the help

Routers route, switches switch and hubs broadcast. Basically you do not want a router. These are only realy used on the internet or to join multiple networks together. Hubs forward any information sent to them on to all the machines connected. Switches only send information to the machine concerned. The best thing to do is call a network company and ask them to recommend a solution.

in v simple terms then...

can anyone explain the differences between
hubs / routers / swiches

What you can and can't do and why you'd use one rather than the other...

no waffle please. :)

hubs can only be connected via upload ports. Switches can connect using any ports (or at least good ones do). IE one 16 port switch and 16 hubs can connect together.

Reaper[oV] wrote:
> Hope some of that made sense, I'm trying to do too many things at once.

---

Sorry but I havent got a clue what youre talking about! :-D

Try asking Turbo.....

Turn up then..heh.

Ok, I've got in a large number of NICs for people (£3 each off a mate), the cabling, and people. As far as hubs go - if I got a 16 port hub now, could an uplink port/crossover cable on that be used with a switch if I bought one at some point in the future, or would a switch only work connected to another switch?

Also, is it worth paying the extra for a stackable hub? I'm familiar with the 2 Level rule for rj45 hubs, but surely in theory you could have 16 hubs running off the first, giving 150+ ports (can't be bothered with the math..). I wouldn't try this without a switch in there to combat packet loss - but that brings me back to my question of combining hubs and switches - can you put them together anywhere in a network, or do all the switches have to be on the level above hubs?

Hope some of that made sense, I'm trying to do too many things at once.

Reaper[oV] wrote:
Needless to say, anyone from SR in north Essex is welcomeÖand cheers
> in advance for any help.

I'm in Essex!!! Chelmsford to be exact.

Heh...the whole reason I started, the admin at the local college is my Dad..

I daren't ask at school, completely clueless people in the IT department. I've pretty much got it all worked out now, I'm happy with the network and server setup, but still hunting down a cheapish venue.

If you havn't already had this answered, maybe you could visit a locl college or UNI and ask some Networkers there, or maybe try the yellow pages for some advice.