XBOX - Setting up a local area network.

Ok, you have 8 kids over for a sleepover, and only 4 controllers for the XBox - what are you going to do?

Well the solution in my house is to have the friends bring their Xboxes and run a temporary network. Then we get teams on each system, playing Halo.

It is very easy to set up a temporary network, and not very expensive. If you only want to hook two systems together, you can do that for less than 15 dollars. The key if you are using only two systems is that you will need a crossover cable instead of a regular cat5 cable, then you just plug the two systems together. Ideally, buy a long enough cable to have the two systems in separate rooms.

If you have an old hub sitting around, you can hook multiple systems into it. I have an old hub and a bunch of cat5 cable from my pre-wireless days. My kids have inherited my leftover networking supplies and can run a network with multiple systems across my house in a matter of minutes. (In fact, when they are invited to Xbox parties, they are required to bring the network with them.)

Since the Xbox system is set up for online play over a fast Internet connection, it comes with a built in NIC (network interface card.) This can be used to plug into a local network as well. Once you connect two systems using a crossover cable, or hook into a hub with multiple systems on it, the Xbox does the rest for you. It usually takes a couple of minutes for the systems to find each other, but once they do, they start talking together and you can get right into game play without worrying about set up issues.

If you have a wireless system you are supposed to be able to plug the Xbox into a computer and use its wireless connection to connect to the rest of the network as well. This can be useful if you have systems set up on different floors of the house.