The heat… The smell…
“…in you’re LAN”
My second favorite Peter Gabriel song
I’m amazed at how few flat screens there are. Probably not yet good enough for gaming.
Not a smartphone in sight.
Just a sea of crt
wonder what that smelled like
Like someone threw thermal paste and hormones on a barbecue
all plugged into one janky power strip.
I think I was going to the wrong lan parties in the 90s because we all kept our shirts on, even when it was hot.
i can smell that room through my monitor, and 22 years later
What are they playing?
Lmao one of the first videos I ever saw on youtube, haven’t seen that in 15 years probably and I heard it in my head instantly
Had MIDI parties in the 90s cuz we didn’t have network cards yet. Just one big ring of machines all daisy chained together with MIDI cables. And it was awesome.
Can you imagine the power bill after running all those CRTs? Damn.
Googling around it seems a 21" draws around 100W, which isn’t as much as I thought; it’s kinda a florescent light with more steps. A florescent backlit LCD doesn’t use a whole lot less, and a modern 30-something inch LED backlit uses, as far as in an tell, about 1/3 that. So, for typical sized monitors, only ~70W more for CRT.
In contrast, the GPU wars mean that (I think?) power consumption in gaming desktops has gone up somewhat substantially — a 500W PSU was fairly beefy in 2003 (I think), whereas 1000W or more is pretty standard for a gaming computer now (obviously it’s not drawing rated power, but assuming headroom % is roughly the same…).
My completely unsubstantiated guess would be that a LAN party setup as pictured would draw more power at idle, but a modern LAN party would draw more under load.
I know enough about power systems to know that we’re going to hit a hard limit on how much max power we’re going to be able to plumb into a computer soon.
A single North American power circuit is approximately 120v and limited to 15A. The numbers wiggle a little from place to place, I’ve seen many that are running 115v or even closer to 110v. The 15A limit is not quite accurate either, since it’s not recommended to load a circuit more than 80% for any continuous load, so your realistic maximum continual draw would be around 12A.
Some newer homes are being built with 20A, but most homes are still generally using 15A breakers.
At 120v, on a 15A circuit, you shouldn’t consistently pull more than 12A, or 1440W. The line will max out at 1800W when the breaker/fuse will start to trigger.
So as power supplies hit 1200 to 1400 watts, you’ll need to ensure that nothing else on the circuit will draw any significant power. A few displays and whatnot are fine, but with a 1200w PSU, you can’t exceed 240w of additional draw while operating within the recommendations.
There are a few solutions to this, the obvious one is move to 20A, which can draw 1920W within the recommended power draw for the circuit, so you could have an 1800w system and about 120w of additional items before hitting the recommended limits, and 480w of total overhead before the breaker goes. The downside is that such circuits require thicker cables in-wall (12awg when 14awg is far more common in homes).
One option I’m aware of that nobody seems to consider is that in NA, the power delivered to the home is approximately 240v split-phase. 240v is generally only used for things like stovetops and ranges, electric dryers, water heaters, resistive heating in forced air furnaces, and air conditioning/heat pump systems. Though, it is entirely possible to convert a simple outlet to 240v. To be safe, you will need to get new receptacles, but you can reuse the wires already in the wall for 240v. I believe the NEMA 6-15R is the one that’s rated for 240v operation in NA, and it’s not dissimilar to the standard NEMA 5-15R that is the typical “North American” receptacle. However, a standard plug (aka a NEMA 5-15P) will not fit into the 240v receptacle. Any outlets on the same circuit would need to be changed so a 120v only device does not get plugged into the 240v receptacle. You can wire it for 240v at 15A which can provide up to 2880W of power without rewiring the house.
The trick will be to find a NEMA 6-15P to C13 connection for the PC and peripherals, and double checking that they will accept 240v power (all monitors and whatnot need to be set up to accept 240v power). On older power supplies, this is a simple switch on the outside of the PSU, though newer units will be switched, so they will detect the input power automatically.
I’m not recommending anyone does that, but if you do, talk to an electrician to ensure you’re complying will all local ordinances.
Despite that, it is an option that most don’t seem to consider.
Personally, I need to have some rewiring done in my residence and I’m going to see if I can get a dedicated 240v 20A single receptacle circuit installed for my computer, with the appropriate receptacles and everything.
To note: most 240v connections also have a neutral line (like what you would find with an oven or dryer), which the NEMA 6 receptacles do not have, they are 240v only. This, along with the fact that most 240v receptacles are rated for 30A+, makes them generally very large. The NEMA 6-15R and NEMA 6-20R are the 15/20A versions of 240v AFAIK, and they’re not really any larger than a standard receptacle.
Oh yeah, modern PCs use a lot of power under load, I was renovating the main room in my condo in the middle of Canadian winter and was keeping the place warm by having two PCs mining crypto since I didn’t have a baseboard!
What’s with all the shirtless people? We mostly kept our clothes on at our LAN parties.
I can imagine it’s just really hot in there with the computers and monitors going.
I feel like aircon wasn’t as common back then, especially strong enough to cool all of that
It’s more likely it wouldn’t be able to handle the number of people + PCs. They are sized for use, and they may be hitting the limit with just the people in there, then add the BTUs coming off all that hardware, and you’ve got yourself a sauna.
Can we have this except with Steam Decks? How bad would we garble up the radio bands with all of them connecting to the Wi-Fi and various tethered phones?
Bluetooth can have a few hundred unique connections
You can tell this is AI because there are girls there
I see we are also telling jokes from 2003.
Let me tell you about chuck Norris…
I’m afraid he already beat you to it, he said you’d tell me the joke and what the punchline was.
And 1993. And 2013. And 2023.
Nah “there’s no girls on the internet” jokes in 2023 (or current year) are kind of cringe, and the only people I hear say jokes like that (even ironically) are in their 40s. Lemmy skews older, so I can see why we’d find that funny.
It’s not “on the internet” it’s “on LAN parties”. Way under 10% of participants are women, sometimes 0%.
Everybody making the same grade school comments and jokes. I’m sure you all came to these ideas on your own, like convergent evolution before our very eyes. I’m sure, as well, it has nothing to do with having been primed to expect it to smell bad by abusive and exploitative ads, and hackneyed sitcom scripts, that raised you when your parents had something else they’d rather have been doing. No, you all say the same fucking thing because it’s just such a good joke (you all independently came up with) that we need to hear it a thousand fucking times every time the opportunity comes up.
Who hurt you
I can’t even imagine how stank that entire building must have been… imagine it’s so hot you have to remove your shirt. bleh.
I think that being horrified by the smell of human beings is pretty broken. It’s not a big deal. Some people even like it. Don’t be a brainwashed tool of ad execs all your life.
