Articles

Services & Rates

The Hive Network can assist you with all of your computer service needs. Our computer repair services can improve your system performance with malware removal, registry updates, hardware upgrades and more. If neccessary we can perform an operating system install. We offer notebook and laptop repair including but not limited to: broken or cracked notebook screens, broken screen backlighting, notebook power jack repair, motherboard repair and other hardware repair or replacement. We can repair or upgrade hardware or build new custom computer or server systems.

If you have multiple computers or devices we offer network services and can troubleshoot and repair or build a new network to connect all of your devices, this includes both wired and wireless networks in both residential and business settings.

If you are interested in web services we offer Web Hosting, Server Colocation, Dedicated Servers, Virtual Private Servers, and Game and Voice Servers.

If you can't make it to our shop locations we offer remote repair services using an existing internet connection and free pickup and delivery services (terms and conditions apply).

If you are interested in our services you can view our current rates and fees below as well as on their respective pages.

Service Rates and Fees

Remote Repair Services - $50 per hour (available only in select situations)
In-shop Services - $35 per hour
Onsite Services - $70 per hour
In-shop Diagnostics - $35
System Optimization - 69.99
Operating System Install, Basic - $105
Operating System Install, Premium - $170
Notebook/Laptop Screen & Backlight Repair - $99.99
Network Installation and Troubleshooting - $95 per hour
After Hours - add $40 per hour
Pickup and Delivery - Free within 2.5 miles, otherwise $35 per hour

All hourly fees are billed in half hour (30 minute) increments unless otherwise noted.

THE HIVE - Gaming Client: Inspired by Mplayer

Every game needs a community to be successful, right? We at Hive Gaming believe in building community strength by bringing everyone together. Not just with our forums, tournaments, or news postings but also with a unique client application, The Hive.

The Hive was designed and created with the plan to bring gamers together through actual chat software that would double as a game launching platform. The Hive will have a wide array of features including: chat, instant messaging, streaming news, virtual lobbies with the option for private user rooms, voice, and video support for starters! We plan to implement a whiteboard type feature into private rooms so that clans or people may chat and have a chance to illustrate their ideas or strategies. Ideally we would like to make a home for a game's community. Let's face it, forums are great but threads and waiting for replies are boring! With The Hive you can jump right online and start chatting, instant messaging and playing in just a few seconds. You can start with the integrated browser, allowing clans and websites to host rooms and link directly to their website.

Are you a competitive gamer? Do you like playing in tournaments? How does the ability to log onto our software, sign up to a tournament and speak with your opponents directly, and then creating a room and launching the game to play together sound? We aim to provide easy to use controls, customizable avatars, and personal icons. We have a full Instant Message environment built into our client, with file transfer and all! What if you won a tournament in your favorite game, how would the community see you? How about your friends? Well with the Hive you will stand above the rest!

(Instant messaging)

The Hive Pager is a very nice tool to use to help keep track of your friends and new gamers alike. Some of the features the Pager will include are: file transfer, offline messaging, friend request, and private messaging. Platinum features for the pager are the ability to use private voice and file storage.

(Virtual lobbies & Rooms)

The Hive will have a series of Game & Chat lobbies for the different types of games we support. In each lobby there is a Master chat room. This is known as the Game Lobby. In this lobby you are able to chat, view player profiles, join player rooms, or create your own room. Rooms are the heart of our software. This is where you'll probably spend most of your time when you’re logged in. Rooms are similar to the lobbies however they have a lot of different key features that lobbies do not. Such features include voice and chat communication, Cams, Room Moderator and Web, Game launching, Avatar, and Drawing board tabs.

(Virtual Lobby)

(Virtual Rooms)

(Voice and chat Communication)

Once inside and user created room players will have the ability to chat just like in the lobby and also use voice communication. Room Moderators have the power to give you unlimited chat or remove your right to talk. Unless given unlimited chat you will only have 20sec (per click) to speak. After 20 sec the microphone will unqueue and you will need to click it again if you need to say more. We do this to help prevent mic hugging and ranting. The Room Moderator controls the room and has power over its guests with tools such as: Kick, Mute, Room URL and allow unlimited voice chat. The Moderator also controls the game launcher and game settings

(Game launching)

Game launching is a tool that is available to room moderators. This is a very user friendly tool for configuring game settings and then launching the configured game. Platinum users will have the option to launch dedicated servers. Using owned and operated co-located Servers built by us. Our servers are located in a state of the art data center in Chicago utilizing bandwidth from Level3, NTT, nLayer, PCCW, and a lot of local peering points (no Cogent). We plan to expand our servers and services both nationally and internationally as our company grows. The Hive client also has the resources and bandwidth capable of hosting 1000's of users. The Hive Network prides itself in delivering premium service and equipment to its clients.

Why Chicago?

More long haul fiber goes through Chicago than any other city in the United States. Most of the fiber connecting the East and West coasts of the United States goes through Chicago, giving Chicago ample network capacity as well as routes that offer low latency to both the East and West coasts. Chicago also has an extremely low occurrence of natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, floods, and earthquakes compared to most of the rest of the United States, meaning there is a reduced risk of outages due to natural disasters.

So why would you want to use our software? Why not! Let us bring the PC gaming community together, and provide a reason for game developers not to move to console. We are here, and ready to play! Also please keep in mind that the following screenshots taken for this preview are from- Alpha Build (v0.01) and doesn't necessarily represent the final version of our software or all of its features. Signups for closed Alpha testing will be posted soon.

Form Submitted

Thank you for scheduling a pickup. A technician will contact you as soon as possible to discuss the details.

Gaming - A letter from the founder

Welcome to the gaming side of The Hive Network, simply put it is the foundation block of our company. Here you will see how deep the rabbit hole goes. The Hive Network has been a stepping block for West Virginia gamers for over 11 years as of January 1st, 2012. We were formerly known as West Virginia Gamers LAN (WVGL). We set out in 1999 as a very small local group of gamers that would play games such as Quake 3, Counter-strike, Unreal Tournament and more all hours of the night on our ATI Rage and 3dfx voodoo custom built boxes.

So for the next year a few of us would hook up and setup a small LAN on the weekends and game. I was always looking and waiting for someone to host a proper LAN party in WV; but it never happened. A few neighboring states would host one or two that year but nothing big. Then a long time gaming and technology friend of mine hosted his first LAN party at Truman State University. Needless to say, it was a huge success and Nathan encouraged me to host my own events and hooked me up with a few big name sponsor contacts to help get it all started.

I met Nathan (also known as "Mangler") on a gaming community program called Mplayer way back in the day. Nathan and I would discuss technology and play Aliens vs. Predator (AVP) for hours upon hours. Nathan moved on to bigger and better things and created legitreviews.com; a review site for just about anything IT related. He now receives more than 500,000 visitors each month.

So, in 2000, I took Nathan’s advice and started WVGL. "West Virginia Gamers Lan" was West Virginia's first LAN party community. Then in July 2001 we hosted WV's first ever LAN party, LAN-FEST #1, and it was hosted right here in Fairmont, WV. 2002 gave birth to LanX out of Parkersburg, WV and LAN-Mine out of Martinsburg, WV. WVGL helped aid both LAN groups by hosting game or voice servers for their community. We also helped to get the word out to the WV gaming community. We also aided them in getting and keeping sponsors for their own events and community.

For the next few years all three of the WV LAN communities grew. Click here to view WVGL Events. LAN parties were the next big thing in the pc gaming community. More and more communities of gamers were hosting and attending events from all over. As the newer games came out pushing 3D graphics, technology was always getting faster and better. Computer hardware companies started to take notice as it was the perfect advertisement and they would sponsor a lot of the events. For the next two years PC gaming was at its highest. Then in 2004 Blizzard released World of Warcraft, a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), and if that was not enough families were introduced to the new outrageous gas prices from $1.88 to $4:30 per gallon. Just like that it was all over for the majority of LAN hosts.

At this point WVGL was used as a technology and gaming news website and for the next year we continued to post news and help the community with hosting needs. As time went on less and less news was being posted as a result of real life, work and school. However, we continued to support WV hosting and computer needs. It was lucky for us that gaming had made its mark, and showed us all just how much we enjoy technology and all the awesome things it’s capable of. In 2006, we renamed WVGL to The Hive Network and applied for a business license. Later the gaming side of things became a sub-division named HIVE GAMING.

Eleven years later we're still together, going strong, and our love and knowledge of technology has only increased! We build and run our own hardware and to top it off we co-locate it in the state of the art datacenter located at 350 E Cermak, Chicago, Illinois, the world's largest datacenter, with premium networks consisting of private 100Mbps and 1000Mbps Dark Fiber connections.

Come see why professional gamers and mountaineers have been hosting with us for years.