Roger Dickey Jr

By the grace of the Xbox gods, somehow tonight, the media player visualizations started working again on my Transformers theme.

I don’t know how or why, but I’m much happier now.

I’ve received a few comments for more details in response to how to open up your Xbox 360, so here you go.

Before setting up these port forwarding rules, my Xbox LIVE Connection test states NAT as "Moderate".

This will cover my specific network setup, but your router should have similar capabilities. You may need to visit your hardware vendor’s web site for port forwarding instructions for your model router.

Now let’s get started.

PART #1 - Set a static IP address on the Xbox 360

Move over to the System Blade and select "Network Settings".

Then select "Edit Settings".

Now select the highlighted IP settings area on the "Basic Settings" tab.

Select "Manual" on the "Edit IP Settings" window.

Select "IP Address". My local network IP addresses use the 192.168.15.X C-class range. I’ve set my Xbox 360 to 192.168.15.36. Then use the same subnet mask & default gateway IP addresses from your PC on the last 2 fields on the Xbox IP settings window.

(Start -> Run -> cmd -> ipconfig)

Finally, manually specify your router’s IP address as a DNS server on the "Basic Settings" tab.

PART #2 - Setup the port forwarding rules.

Now find what your router’s IP address is. Open a command prompt

(Start -> Run -> cmd -> ipconfig)

Type the IP address listed as your default gateway into your web browser.

Login to your router, if you haven’t change the login, the username and password may just be "admin".

After you’ve logged in, find the Port Forwarding menu. On the Linksys WRTP54G, it’s under Applications & Gaming, then Port Range Forwarding.

Here you specify the rules to allow Xbox Live traffic from the Internet to reach your Xbox:

Port: 88, Protocol: both (TCP & UDP)

Port: 2074, Protocol: both (TCP & UDP)

Port: 3074, Protocol: both (TCP & UDP)

"xbl" is just a simple name I used to label what these ports are being used for. You could really specify any string there.

After saving the port forwarding rules, re-run the Xbox LIVE Connection tests and NAT should state "Open". 

Now fire up Halo 3 and your multi-player NAT warnings are all gone.

Please leave me a comment on how this helped your setup. Happy gaming!