In the suggestion forum here, I posted a free chat software that integrates nicely with the forum database (meaning it uses it to validate members so that only members can participate). It ain't perfect, but it is free, relatively painless to install, and has worked well on the site I administer.
The best solution would be a true IRC server but that would be a bit of an unnecessary expense. A downside to chat with a new site is that oftentimes all the conversations migrate over there and you could see a drop in postings to the forums.
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