After weeks of problems, I've discovered that my constant Xbox Live disconnections are down to my router not being compatible. Its an old Netgear RP114.

I'm looking at picking up either a Netgear WGT624 or a WPN834. Both of these are listed as ok on the support page. Does anyone have any good or bad experiences with either of these routers? Everything will be wired for the time being. Wireless will come later next year.

I've read online reviews but they tend to be written by idiots who give something 2% because they're too thick to follow install instructions (you know the kind!)

Thanks!

I guess its using something like UPNP? Because otherwise any router should work...

Yeah, XBox Live needs UPNP.

They don't actually say why. All they say is that "the following routers have been found to be incompatible with XBL".

I've done all the workarounds with telnet etc but still I get cut off after 5 minutes of play.

If I connect directly to the modem theres no issues.

See here: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/connecttolive/xbox360/homenetworking/equipment.htm

See that annoys me. Nowhere did I read that I required that (and I think I'm quite techy). :-(

Looking around some more, it seems you can get it to work without UPNP. Basically, you need to set your router so that the XBox gets the same IP address every time, then forward TCP ports 88 and 3074 and UDP port 3074 to the XBox.

Try it on your current router. If you need more precise instructions, let us know.

Just confirming UPnP is not a requirement of XBox Live, been running it fine behind a Linux server acting as a router with shorewall for years. Forward on the right ports, and the diagnostics on the 360 should confirm everything looks good. My report ends up showing NAT as open, allowing my system to connect to anyone behind any type of NAT setup.

Take it form me, you want a Thompson Modem/Router. The new BT Homehub is based on the Thompson chipsets and although the BT version of the software is crap most BT customers can get a free one simply by swapping deals.

The modem chipset is outstanding, it will sync on lines that nothing else will, and keeps sync where others drop. I also get an extra 1Mbps out of my 546's compared to my pervious router of choice, the 2wire gateway thing from BT. I think my 546 to uPnP too.

I've gone right off Netgear routers, I've had a few and fiind them to have rubbish wireless range, iffy modems and constant firmware updates to get the thing to work.

Just my 2 pennys.

Cheers

Cris.

It does mean that you can have only the one XBox behind your router, though.

Anything else out there running the same chipset? I wouldn't want to move to BT for my broadband just to get a good modem!

Sure, any Thompson branded router

You can't use the BT Homehub on any other SP anyway, they have removed the username and password entry from the firmware.

Maybe I should be more clear on the extra speed issue. My line is very marginal, not in length but line quality. This has been proved by my second line running at 6Mbps where the first ranges between 4.5 to 5.5 Mbps. The Thompson is able to pull the most of the line with the 2wire it was 3.5 to 4.5Mbps. I think I have a split pair as all other testing hasn't thrown up a line fault as such, but for the moment it is proving useful to have a slightly faulty line to play with. As yet I can't find a router that gives me a more stable line as the Speedtouch 546 or better wireless range than the 2wire so I sue that combo for best all round results.

Just in case you were wondering what the worst router I have seen, it's a Cisco, no idea why they are so bad.

Cheers

Cris.

Bitt, I tried all that but still the issue remained. Static IP, port forwarding, some telnet magic but nothing works.

Weird. No idea.

Do you forward other ports to other computers? If not, check to see if your router has a DMZ option where it will forward all incoming traffic to a specific computer. Make that computer your XBox and see what happens. (Not all routers have such an option, and I have no idea about yours.)

Hmm. Actually, I wonder if you might accidentally be doing a dual NAT. Check to see what your router thinks its external IP address is. It might be that your ISP's modem is doing it, and then your router is doing it again, which would break things (even if you got a new router).

Anyway, if your router thinks its external IP starts with 10. or 192.168. or 172.16. thru 172.31., then this is your problem.

I do wonder why MS calls out those routers in particular as being incompatible. Surely there are many more that didn't support UPNP.

Oh it drove me crazy and still nothing worked (thanks for all the suggestions!)

Checked everything you suggested and in the end I just bought a new router. Problem solved!

Why though would it work for 20 minutes at a time? Why, when I did all the checks from the xbox menu did it pass all the tests with everything open and ready to go. Weird. Oh well... :S

WRT54GL