Connecting XBox 360 to internet through my PC

Factual Questions
1

I need to move my 360 out of the living room, away from the wireless router, and into my bedroom. There are a few options for connecting the 360 to XBox Live:

  1. Run an ethernet cable from the living room to my bedroom.
  2. Buy an XBox 360 wireless internet adapter, $100 new or about $40-50 used.
  3. Try to connect my XBox to the internet through my PC using an ethernet crossover cable

I’m not even considering number one. Number two is OK, but I’d rather not eat that cost if I don’t have to. I’m here to ask about the third option.

After poking around on Google a bit, it seems that it’s possible to get this done. I ran over to Circuit City real quick to see what kind of crossover cables they carry. They have one, and it costs $40. I think that’s bullshit. A quick Google search lists several for the $5-12 range. My questions are these:

If I can get this to work, what kind of performance can I expect? Specifically, I need a fast enough connection to play XBLive multiplayer games. I can try to provide details on my internet connection if necessary.

How much will it cost? Will those $6 crossover cables perform well enough for me, or do I need to spring for the Price-Gouge Plus cable over at Circuit City?

Where should I go to buy a cable? If CC only had one model in stock, are smaller (and likely cheaper) computer stores going to carry any?

2

[QUOTE=Team of Scientists]
I need to move my 360 out of the living room, away from the wireless router, and into my bedroom. There are a few options for connecting the 360 to XBox Live:

  1. Run an ethernet cable from the living room to my bedroom.
  2. Buy an XBox 360 wireless internet adapter, $100 new or about $40-50 used.
  3. Try to connect my XBox to the internet through my PC using an ethernet crossover cable

I’m not even considering number one. Number two is OK, but I’d rather not eat that cost if I don’t have to. I’m here to ask about the third option.

After poking around on Google a bit, it seems that it’s possible to get this done. I ran over to Circuit City real quick to see what kind of crossover cables they carry. They have one, and it costs $40. I think that’s bullshit. A quick Google search lists several for the $5-12 range. My questions are these:

If I can get this to work, what kind of performance can I expect? Specifically, I need a fast enough connection to play XBLive multiplayer games. I can try to provide details on my internet connection if necessary.

How much will it cost? Will those $6 crossover cables perform well enough for me, or do I need to spring for the Price-Gouge Plus cable over at Circuit City?

Where should I go to buy a cable? If CC only had one model in stock, are smaller (and likely cheaper) computer stores going to carry any?
[/QUOTE]

Disclaimer - I have no idea if number 3 will actually work - you’ll have to configure your PC to allow other devices to access the internet through it, and I don’t know if something in the Xbox will choke.

Given all that, if the software/IP stacks play nicely together, you will get pretty much exactly the same bandwidth to the xbox as you get to the PC. A crossover cable will give you at least a 100Mb connection, far faster than your internet connection likely is. You’ll be sharing the PC’s connection of course, so you don’t want to be downloading huge files while playing the game. (I’m assuming you have a spare ethernet connection on your PC as well).

A crossover cable is exactly the same as a standard ethernet cable, except the pinouts in the connectors are different. It’s about 30 cents worth of materials. The $5 one will work just fine. Staples seems to have a bunch at less extortionate prices, if you want to buy from a store instead of a website - otherwise, www.monoprice.com has good prices. If you work at a place with an IT dept, it may be worth a trip down there to see if they can spare you a cable or could build you one - most IT shops I’ve seen have boxes and drawers full of unused cables.

3

That’s great to hear. Definitely worth taking a shot for a few bucks. Plus, I really wanna try to get this thing hooked up today rather than wait a few days for shipping.

4

In a pinch, one can turn a standard ethernet cable into a crossover variety. This page has the “right” way to do it with wirestrippers and crimpers but I’ve done it with a boxcutter and electrical tape (though I’m sure performance took a hit).

Certain ethernet cards can tell if the connection in question would require a crossover cable and “cross themselves over” automatically, even with a regular cable. This ability is known as Auto-MDIX and is standard on modern Apple machines. I don’t know how common this is on the PC side, but it’s probably worth checking your hardware to see if it’s supported.

5

I’m gonna do a minor hijack here.

If I unplug the cable from the back of my PC, and plug it into the back of my Xbox 360, will I automatically be able to access Xbox live?

(I would, of course, need to make an account and such. Duh.)
/hijack

6

[QUOTE=Tristan]
I’m gonna do a minor hijack here.

If I unplug the cable from the back of my PC, and plug it into the back of my Xbox 360, will I automatically be able to access Xbox live?

(I would, of course, need to make an account and such. Duh.)
/hijack
[/QUOTE]

that should work I believe, regardless of whether that wire goes to the modem or to a router.

7

[QUOTE=Tristan]
I’m gonna do a minor hijack here.

If I unplug the cable from the back of my PC, and plug it into the back of my Xbox 360, will I automatically be able to access Xbox live?

(I would, of course, need to make an account and such. Duh.)
/hijack
[/QUOTE]

Subject to the firewall and other restrictions of your router/cable modem/internet access device, yes.

8

I have my 360 hooked through my computer, without the use of a crossover cable. I set up a network bridge in XP, and it works great (It took a while to get it setup… Everything had to be setup manually). I’m not sure whether my ethernet nic is the type that crosses itself over, but I don’t think so.

There’s also an Instructable of how to set it up using a crossover cable.

9

I got this to work last night after tinkering around with it for a bit. It’s pretty simple, really. Just plug the crossover cable into the XBox and PC, and then set your internet connection to “shared.” I ran into one snag: in order to share your internet connection, 192.168.0.1 needs to be free. My D-Link wireless router uses that IP by default, so I just changed it to 192.168.1.1. Everything seems to be working fine, so I don’t think I screwed anything up, and I played a bunch of Call of Duty 4 last night free of lag.

Thanks for the help, everyone.

10

[QUOTE=St_Ides]
I have my 360 hooked through my computer, without the use of a crossover cable. I set up a network bridge in XP, and it works great (It took a while to get it setup… Everything had to be setup manually).
[/QUOTE]

Could you explain this in further detail? Do you mean that your XBOX is plugged into one NIC on your computer and the internet connection on the other, and you set up your system as a router? I’ve been debating on doing this myself because I want to get 2 devices on the internet without the hassle of a dsl router.

11

[QUOTE=SenorBeef]
Could you explain this in further detail? Do you mean that your XBOX is plugged into one NIC on your computer and the internet connection on the other, and you set up your system as a router? I’ve been debating on doing this myself because I want to get 2 devices on the internet without the hassle of a dsl router.
[/QUOTE]

Sort of.

I have a wifi card in my desktop, I use that for my network and internet connection. When I got my 360, I created a Network Bridge using XP. (That link both explains what it is and how to do it)

Once it was setup, I couldn’t seem to get DHCP working, so I had to manually give the 360 an IP, DNS, Subnet, etc.

It works great now, and wasn’t too difficult for me to create (I’m not an IT Specialist by any measure, but I know my way around a computer.)