Jeremy Charette
09-09-2005, 01:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1848901,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0' target='_blank'>http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1848901,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0</a><br /><br /></div><i>"My home office does double duty. During the day, it's a mild-mannered test lab, with test systems quietly humming away, running benchmarks or installing software. During Friday nights and some weekends, the area becomes the boisterous headquarters of Friday Night Follies, a weekly LAN party I host. Note that unlike many LAN parties, the Follies gang members don't haul their own PCs over. I have a mix of old PCs and test-bed systems that we use. I've found that LAN gaming is a great way to wring out hardware用articularly motherboards and graphics cards. It's amazing how some gear runs fine in standalone mode, but as soon as you start hammering on it in multiplayer mode, you get instant instability."</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/0,1425,sz=1&i=104522,00.jpg" /> <br /><br />Wires. What a nightmare. I go to great lengths in my own home office to avoid wires wherever possible, including a wireless keyboard, mouse, and networking. Yet there are still times I look at the mess of cables behind my desk and wonder what might happen if a spark should ever fly. 8O Don't even ask about my home theater setup, which is about to get worse with the addition of a coax booster and a component video splitter. The fire marshall would probably evict me in a matter of minutes! I've gotta agree with a lot of Loyd's tips here, including cable wraps and labels. Did I mention you should use labels? This article has given me the inspiration I need to redo my own cable layout this weekend!