Using my PC as a bridge for my xbox?

flogen

I have an internet connection downstairs in the house and am faced with the classic problem, I can't get my xbox live sorted!
My pc upstairs is using a wireless card to connect and I was hoping to use it as a bridge of some sorts to get the xbox online. I connected the two via ethernet and have selected internet connection sharing between the two, but the xbox isn't playing ball, what do I need to do to get this to work, I'd rather not go out and buy a pretty expensive (and untrustable, I hear) wireless reciever for the xbox.

Thanks

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Could you just get a generic receiver for the xbox and not one of the official ones?

flogen

well, they still cost money, and when I don't need to spend money on a reciever, I'd rather not
I'm certain there is a way to do it, I remember the booklet for my IOL connection had details for it and everything, although I don't know how well that would work with a wireless router

peterk19

Make sure they are connested with a crosswire ethernet cable then you just have to share the connection from the wireless i have the exact same setup on mine and it works great
Pete

xanthor

sean_keevey wrote:

Could you just get a generic receiver for the xbox and not one of the official ones?

FWIW, I'm pretty sure the 360 only works with the 'official' receiver.

flogen

peterk19 wrote:

Make sure they are connested with a crosswire ethernet cable then you just have to share the connection from the wireless i have the exact same setup on mine and it works great
Pete

This is probably where the problem is, I don't think I'm using a crosswire, how can you tell the difference anyway?

Will try and pick one up in maplins tomorrow/

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

flogen

Still having trouble with this; I got the switchover cable today and hooked it all up, and set the wireless connection to be shared across the network, and now the xbox starts trying to connect to live, so its certainly made a difference, but it won't actually make the connection.

Any ideas? I've restarted both the PC and the xbox a few times and it doesn't make a difference.

EasyBoy1974

is this an IP configuration issue?

what is the IP address & mask of the wireless connection? presumably your wireless DSL router is also a DHCP server? what is it's IP address? what is the pool IP range & mask?

ICS in Win XP will assign addresses in the 192.168.0/24 subnet so you have to make sure your wireless network is running on some other range (say 192.168.1/24)

flogen

so where my laptops wireless is connected on 192.168.1.3, I should get the xbox to connect on something like 192.168.1.4? So change the settings on the xbox itself?

EasyBoy1974

no you want the xbox on a different subnet - your PC (laptop) effectively acts like a router

the wireless adapter should be
192.168.1.x where x = 1 to 254
subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0 (this is important - the default subnet mask for a class b address is 255.255.0.0)

then ICS should assign the IP address 192.168.0.1 to the wired network adapter, then auto assign a 192.168.0.x adress to the xbox

con you start a cmd prompt and do a ipconfig /all on the laptop and post it here?

flogen

here it is a screenshot of it, thanks for your help

EasyBoy1974

hmm that all looks OK

Are you running any firewall software on the laptop?

i have a similar setup with my xbox 360 and my media center PC with a wireless adapter. i found the connection to xbox live stopped after i put zone alarm on the media PC. X360 has a nifty connection check utility which told me the problem was the TCP MTU (max trans unit). is there a similar util for the xbox?

flogen

EasyBoy1974 wrote:

hmm that all looks OK

Are you running any firewall software on the laptop?

Yeah, I had been, but even when they're turned off I get the same issue, I made sure the McAfee and Windows firewalls were down and that the router didn't have any kind of blocks on it.
Wierd

CivilServant

Did you manage to get this working?

flogen

CivilServant wrote:

Did you manage to get this working?

No, still no luck on this at all...

silverlining

What make/model of router do you own? it's possible that you need to forward some ports to the ICS PC. You could try plugging the xbox into the router downstairs, if it doesnt work there you probably need to forward ports 3074 and 88 to the ip address of the PC.
If it does work then the PC is at fault so look for help on disabling UPnP in windows which is causing problems for lots of people with UPnP routers and consider uninstalling McAfee altogether and replacing it with AVG free edition.

Basq

flogen.. i'd the same exact same issue and i got it sorted in the Console Modding forum if i remember correctly!

Hold on, i'll dig up a link!

EDIT: Here we go! Read and follow the guide linked to by Placebo here!

Best of luck!

flogen

basquille wrote:

flogen.. i'd the same exact same issue and i got it sorted in the Console Modding forum if i remember correctly!

Hold on, i'll dig up a link!

EDIT: Here we go! Read and follow the guide linked to by Placebo here!

Best of luck!

Thanks for that, everything seems to be in working order except for the DNS.
I have it set to auto on my router and my xbox, but on the wired connection, when select manual IP input, it won't let me automatically find the DNS, how do I find out what my router/ISP DNS is?

actually, I've found my DNS and entered the details into the wired connection, and now the IP settings are found by the xbox no problem, but it still cant reach the DNS server... wierd

flogen

bump...

Anyone know what the issue is here?

silverlining

flogen wrote:

Thanks for that, everything seems to be in working order except for the DNS.
I have it set to auto on my router and my xbox, but on the wired connection, when select manual IP input, it won't let me automatically find the DNS, how do I find out what my router/ISP DNS is?

actually, I've found my DNS and entered the details into the wired connection, and now the IP settings are found by the xbox no problem, but it still cant reach the DNS server... wierd

Okay so you've enabled ICS on the PC upstairs so you dont and should not change any settings manually on that PC (you dont need to put a dns address on the wired connection). The xbox should now pick up an ip address, subnet mask and gateway from the wired ethernet port on the PC. Make sure it is getting the correct gateway adress (192.168.0.1) otherwise the xbox cannot 'see' beyond the PC and DNS will not work then anyway.

The IP address should be something like 192.168.0.x but if the xbox doesnt pick one up you can enter one manually as 192.168.0.x (x= any number except 1 which is the PC).

I saw from your previous screen capture that the PC's wireless DNS settings are pointing at 192.168.1.1 which is your wireless router. This means that your wireless router is acting as a DNS server (forwarding all requests to your ISPs DNS servers) which is handy because 192.168.1.1 is easy to remember! So stick in 192.168.1.1 as the IP address of your DNS server on the xbox and it should work fine once the gateway and ip address are correct.

You may want to uninstall ICS, make sure the internet is still working fine and then reinstall ICS to undo any changes that may have been made by accident while you were trying to get it to work. good luck, let us know how you get on.