PenStar Hardware Workshop and UW PC Gamers’ LanFEST 2.1

30 Hours of Gaming Mayhem

By Josh Walrath

            Near the end of February I had the chance to participate in my first major LAN event.  I live in Wyoming, and by living here I am sheltered from things like major crime, natural disasters (though blizzards can be common), state income taxes, pollution, traffic jams, etc.  Unfortunately, I tend to miss a lot of things as well.  One of these is attending a major LAN.  A few years back a couple of gaming enthusiasts at the University of Wyoming decided to get together and form a PC club, so they could organize events such as LAN’s, workshops, hardware swaps, etc.

The room is actually quite large, and the power is more than adequate for the needs of a major LAN.  This is early in the action, and people are still streaming in.

            After a few rocky starts, they have finally gotten the LAN thing down.  They found that the Albany County Fairgrounds had a very spacious area for them to set up, and more importantly there is more than adequate power already installed into the building.  For anyone that has organized a LAN, power is the event killer.  If a bunch of computers with monitors are running, a 2^nd rate power setup will kill a LAN before it ever begins.  Using the ACF facilities, this is not a problem.

            The LAN itself hosted around 100 people this time, which in terms of some of the larger LANs is not a big thing, but for being one of the first to be hosted in Wyoming, it is certainly an achievement.  Mini-tournaments were organized, and an X-Box tournament was and run by a local fraternity from UW.  All in all, the LAN itself went off without a hitch.  We are certainly hoping that the next major LAN (planned for October or November) will attract people not only from the Laramie area (which features the University of Wyoming campus), but hopefully other gamers from Ft. Collins, CO, Nebraska, and beyond.

Some of the miscellaneous swag and prizes, as well as two attendees putting their names into the drawing.  Note the "Corsair Rules" poster in the background!  Very important stuff!

            The LAN started check in at 6pm Friday evening, and continued on until Saturday night.  There were quite a few people playing by 8pm on Friday, and the action never stopped.  One thing that did confuse me was the folks playing World of Warcraft at the LAN… I guess to each their own!  But it seems to me that the idea behind going to a LAN was to play games not normally available online, or to have really good ping to the server you were playing on.  WoW can be played at home, but then there is no accounting for MMORPG addiction!

            My hardware workshop was scheduled for Saturday at 3pm.  I was actually quite surprised to hear that there were people who wanted to attend the workshop and skip on the LAN itself.  Then again, considering some of the prizes, I would have been tempted to do that as well! 

The Sponsors

            This year the UW PC Gamer’s had gathered sponsorship from ATI, NVIDIA, Monarch Computers, Bawls, and a handful of local businesses.  The PC Gamers had plenty of swag and free stuff on hand to pass out to the attendees.  Since this was their first officially sponsored LAN, the stuff was all pretty basic (t-shirts, stickers, bottles of Bawls, etc.).

            Now, due to me having this site since 1999, I was able to procure a bit more from my major sponsors for my hardware and overclocking workshop.

            Corsair was the signature sponsor for this event, and everyone there was actually quite aware of who Corsair is.  The XMS series of DIMMS are a favorite of enthusiasts and overclockers, and essentially everyone who attended the LAN held these DIMMS in awe.  For the event Corsair donated a set of TwinX1024 XMS 3200 XL Pro DIMMS (reviewed here).  These were the big giveaway at the end of the hardware workshop, and they were the products that people were looking to most anxiously.  The only unfortunate part for this prize is that the winner had a stock Dell system, and no way to see the LED’s on the DIMMS in action.  So much for overclocking!  Corsair also donated a lot of other prizes, such as hats, mini-toolkits, and some really nice pens.  All in all, Corsair did a great job and was very generous with their support.

The author (looking quite suave and debonair) posing at the beginning of the workshop.  Heatsinks, memory, motherboards, and other prizes await their new, happy owners.

            Tyan was #2 on the list as a major sponsor, and their donation (which due to a FedEx mixup didn’t arrive until Monday after the event) included the enthusiast friendly Tomcat S5120, which is based on the Intel i915G chipset.  This is actually a very feature packed board, and from my understanding has some respectable overclocking potential.  This was also a highly sought after prize for the gamers, especially since it still utilized DDR-1 memory.  Tyan also sent some pens and other items to be given away.

            The third big sponsor was NVIDIA (again).  They sent some of the typical type gear for the LAN, though unfortunately no video cards were given away.  Posters, stickers, case badges, and other assorted NVIDIA branded paraphernalia were sent.

            GoFast donated a couple of cases of their product for the LAN, as well as adequate refrigeration (provided kindly by Tim Gaddis and Juan Soto).  Free drinks are always a favorite of attendees, and the cases of GoFast WentFast.

            Finally, PenStarSys.com donated a couple of high end Thermalright Socket A heatsinks and fan combinations for the giveaway.  These products served the site well, and they needed a good, new home.  The winners of these two combo’s were quite excited, and both of them ran around afterwards desperately seeking some Arctic Silver so they could install these ASAP.  We also donated about a dozen Ratpadz GS mousepads, and these were again heavily sought out by the gamers.

Next: The Hardware Workshop

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