The trade show floor is open at SXSW Interactive, so The Planet Server Challenge is officially underway. We went through the basics of the competition yesterday, so today we’re diving into the details.

The Goal: Reassemble our Pentium4 server faster than your SXSW peers and win an ASUS Eee PC Netbook.

The Rules:

1. You may arrange the components as you’d like* before starting.

*Fan, Heat Sink and RAM must be on the table outside of the chassis.

2. You may not be touching any components when time starts.
3. All components must be installed for your time to be recorded.
4. Components can be installed in any order.
5. Components outside the server may only be touched one at a time.
6. You may attempt the build twice.
7. Time will be recorded by a representative from The Planet.
8. The leader board in the booth will reflect the current “time to beat.”

A Successful/Complete Installation:

• Install heat sink, latch both latches
• Plug heat sink into motherboard
• Install fan
• Plug fan into motherboard
• Install two RAM modules (in any of the 4 slots)
• Plug in Hard Drive power cable
• Plug in Hard Drive ribbon cable
• Plug in CD-ROM power cable
• Plug in CD-ROM ribbon cable
• Slide case lid into place

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’m pretty sure videos are worth a few million. With that in mind, we recorded a quick explanation and demonstration of the challenge:

Do you think you have what it takes to get the best time? Swing by our booth and prove it! We will update the top times in the comments section of this blog so you can keep an eye on the current record in absentia.

UPDATE: We just spoke with one of the representatives from the Universal Records Database, and he suggested that we submit the fastest time to their database, and they will certify the winner as a universal record holder! Forget having the fastest hands at SXSW … You’ll have the fastest hands in the universe.

-Kevin

P.S. Don’t forget to RSVP for tonight’s Tumblr/SoundCloud/Kickstarter party!