I've created a topic on my clan's website's forums, where I can try to
address all the issues I can. So in the future, you can just register and post your questions by clicking here.
I know there are alot of routers that are unsuported here, just post in the forums at the link provided, and I can research each individual router. This site has seen a 250,000 hits over the last 3 months, which is pretty taxing bandwidth wise. This is a lo-fi version, and still costs money in hosting. I will never solicit donations, but I would apprecciate if you find this site helpful, to check out some of the adverts provided by google.
It will help to ensure this site is always accessible. I'd also like to thank Arte888 at The Simple Designs for his forum sig work. If you need a forum sig, register and request, and he'll hook you up!
DiGiTa1
Alright, so you've been having problems accepting friend requests and joining existing games sessions? So was I. The main source of this problem in most cases is the way your router is setup. Without getting into the boring details that no one wants to hear about, your computer network is locked down pretty tight and preventing some connections from being made between you and other gamers. The purpose of this tutorial is to help you lessen the effects of your firewall, while still keeping your computers safe. There are other factors that can be at play, so if this doesn't work 100% for you, i'll list a few other things you can check at the end of this tutorial. What i'll be walking you through now is what's called "Port Forwarding". Your firewall is setup out of the box only to let certain information through in certain situations and rejecting everything else. We'll be creating rules to let your firewall know that XBox live traffic is ok in turn giving you a better success rate. The process if fairly simple, and shouldn't take more than 10 minutes. If you run into any problems, or something is unclear, add me to your friends list and send me a message (gamertag- aKa DiGiTa1), and i'll do what I can to help. You can also email me by clicking here.
The first thing we need to do is give your 360 a static IP address. Turn on your 360 and go to the dashboard. Once you are at the dashboard, go over to the "System" Blade and select "Network Settings".
Under the "Network" Blade, we need to select "Edit Settings".
You will now be presented with the basic network settings for your 360. From here, you need to highlight the first section labeled "IP Settings" and select it.
From this screen, choose "Manual".
Now we will need to change all of the headings in this section 1 at a time. First will be IP addrress. Depending on what type of router you have, the settings will be differrent. Find your router brand below and enter the appropriate settings. If your router brand is not listed below, contact me, and i'll help you find the appropriate settings.
After you've entered all of your settings, select done, and we'll move on to the DNS settings. After selecting done, you'll be brought back to the basic settings menu. From here, you need to highlight the "DNS Settings" section and select it.
In the "DNS Settings" menu, select manual and then primary DNS server. When the entry box comes up, enter the settings listed above for your router brand and select done. A message will come up asking you to test and save your new settings. Select test live and press A. If you are currently signed into live, you will be logged out so the tests can run. At this point if you followed the instructions, everything should pass or be confirmed, and your NAT status will likely still show "moderate". This is normal. You still need to complete step 2 to open this up. We are now done with step one, so click on the the "Step 2" link to continue to the next step.