Question for the gamers and network guys here. I have been out of the gaming world for a few years and decided to buy an xbox 360. What is the best way to hook it up to my internet network?

My house is wired so that the cable comes in to the house and into the cable modem. Out of the modem it goes into a distribution box that distributes the internet to all of the outlets in the house. I have a wireless router plugged into a room that I don't use for my internet for the laptop however I can move the router to any room I want. If I hook the xbox up just to one of the outlets (not going through the router) can I still connect to the laptop through the xbox? Or do I need to hook it up to the router? I don't want to buy the wireless adapter for the xbox.

Hope this makes sense....I don't know much about networking.

Thanks

 

I don't know much about it either but I do know to get my 360 to even come close to hooking up to my computer I have to plug the computer straight into the 360 and it's still a pain. I don't see the reason or the benifit of hooking/syncing the two together.

Also I would just run a wire from the router or one of your outlets in the wall to the 360 and it should go Live for you.

I'll see if I can't dig up all the research and sites I went to when I got my 360 and was trying to sink it to my laptop. But like I said it was pointless in my eyes and the only thing it would see on my computer was that Windows Media program.

 

If you want more than one computer/device (like the xbox) to be on the Internet at the same time, you need to "share" the Internet connection. This is done using a router.

In a nutshell, the router talks to the ISP and gets a public IP address. It then uses a process called NAT that makes it possible for all the private devices on the LAN (behind the router) to all use this single public address to communicate with the Internet. Here is a basic diagram of how it should look.

This diagram uses a seperate switch. If your router has 4 LAN ports then it has a switch built in. Most of these do. You can just plug a seperate switch into one of the 4 ports to create more ports if you need more than 4.

 

Ok I think I have this figured out. My cable company can essentially assign more than 1 IP to my house. I just have to call and register the Xbox with them. This way I can hook up to any outlet in the house. Or my second option is to hook the xbox directly to the router. Is there any benefit speed for one over the other?

As a side note my internet service is not that fast, only 1m download and I need to check the upload. This is the fastest service they have available.

 

The only benefit to going the router route (no pun intended) is you don't need to pay for extra IP addresses. I don't think you'll see any difference in performance one way or the other.

 

i used an ethernet cable running from my desktop to my 360. i think you have to change your internet settings to allow an outside "source" (the 360) to get internet tho. just click on the little internet connection on the bottom of the screen on your windows and go to settings and its an option.

thats all i had to ever do to get a conncetion. i tried the wireless but in my house, where my 360 is it would never pick up a decent connection.

 

I've got a modem hooked up to ISP with Ethernet and USB ports. I have my computer on USB and my Xbox 360 on the Ethernet. When they're both on, my computer recognizes its Microsoft buddy and I can listen to music on my computer from my Xbox. Kinda cool if you ask me.

 

Don't go wireless to the 360 box. We have both wired and wireless for the 360. I don't game, but my boys do and they refuse to use the wireless. They prefer the hard wired connection.
If your room isn't wired, a 60 dollar extender setup will work just fine.
One such devise is: Netgear's Wall-plugged ethernet extender kit : model: XE102GNA. We also have one set of these and they work as good as the hard wire installed rooms.

 

Anyone have a 360 they want to get rid of?