I have a wireless N router. It works great, really is better than a G. Don't play on live wirelessly though, i just fed a line through the ceiling/wall to make sure i would have the best connectivity. And the connectivity is great, i actually get host now, opposed to my old router and halo 2...those days gave me nightmares.

Just got an interesting response from a player on my xbox dot com thread. The player says: [quote]I will try as best I can to explain the security risks with UPnP. In my opinion, the security risks are "over played" in many posts, blogs and security web sites. While it is indeed true, that a malicious program can open ports using UPnP, you first have to "get" the malicious software on your system. Once it is there, it can find a way to get ports open, even without UPnP. UPnP is just one of many ways it could open communications. A vast majority of legitimate software opens ports on your router and PC all the time. In fact, most routers and PC's are set up to allow ports to be opened by any authorized software on your machine. The only thing UPnP might add to that is the ability to open "annoyomous" ports. These are ports that open without communication from an "inside" program first. Malicious software can also use "common" ports that would be opened anyway. So, while UPnP does indeed add some level of risk. In my opinion, not using UPnP, it is a bit like putting a very secure lock on the front door of your house while leaving the back door unlocked. Not using UPnP does not improve your security all that much. It is a small risk, to use it. Now, another view of UPnP would say that it is "more" secure than manually opening Ports or using DMZ. UPnP only opens ports that are needed, WHEN they are needed. It closes them when the application no longer needs them. So with UPnp ports are not open all the time. With "manual" ports, the ports are open all the time and so are available 24/7 for someone to exploit. And DMZ opens "all" ports, "all" the time. So, if you ask me, UPnp has some features that can make it more secure than the other two options. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is the best firewall [/quote]

Well I played with a few friends Friday and had some problems. I was able to get into a party and chat in the lobby of COD4. But when my bud [he was hosting] would launch the game it would kill the game and call it a draw. This angered the other players, as they thought it was done on purpose. This happened a few more times and then we asked the other friend to host. Then we had a different prob starting with him as host. It said "error cannot connect to host". He checked and found his wife's laptop was online and apparently interfering with his xbox live session. Once he turned off her laptop, things cleared up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ So, as far as keeping UPnP on, it can be a risk. But for my situation, I'm just not sure how risky it is. Turning UPnP on solved my moderate NAT. I'm just not sure how to get it open using the other methods. So I finally turned off the SSID brodcast. And I surmise that for the average middleclass home user in my neighborhood that they either won't take the time to sniff my SSID, or they don't know enough to know I'm there at all. Other sites have recommended that turning off the SSID isn't really effective. They say if a person is motivated enough, or knows enough on how to overcome this, they'll have the equipment and desire to do so. Well, even though you never really know what goes on behind closed doors, I think my neighborhood isn't jam packed with internet hackers. Just common folk who'd take a cookie if they thought noone was looking. [aka stealing my internet connection] Also, some sites recommend using MAC filtering. Other sites say there are easy/free tools to spoof the MAC and still get into your network. I guess its all up to the individual on if they think these measures are worth it.

Further update: After some searching the net, I found some possible security problems when enabling UPnP. The below excerpt from this site [url=http://www.mandladventures.com/2007/04/21/securing-your-wireless-network/#UPnP]HERE[/url] [quote]Turn Off UPnP Another worthwhile security measure is turning of Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) on both your PC and your router. UPnP is bad because it lets software automatically open ports on your router without your knowledge. To make it even worse, you can’t tell which ports have been opened. The idea behind UPnP was to make it easy for network software/devices to work without a user having to manually configure Port Forwarding. The problem is that malware could also use this auto-configuration feature to open ports behind your back in order to communicate with the outside world. Additionally, UPnP has several major vulnerabilities in the past such as buffer overruns that could lead to remote code execution. Although the known vulnerablities have been patched, turning off UPnP would prevent any future exploits. The easiest way I know of to turn off UPnP on your PC is to use the UnPlug n’ Pray utility.[/quote] So I wondering if since I'm using WPA2 if this is still a vulnerability? Anyone? Also, would this be a problem if I'm just using the 360 and my laptop isn't connected [wirelessly] at the time? If so, should I turn [i]off[/i] UPnP when I connect the laptop? Edit: would this be okay if the UPnP isn't enabled on my laptop? thanks [Edited on 01.08.2008 10:00 PM PST]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] WalkinBonfire N routers start of in greenfield mode, meaning they broadcast in a,b,g, and n. You can then choose to switch to all-n for a speed boost, if you so desire.[/quote] That's great, but my understanding is the 360 wireless adapter [see [url=http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x/xbox360wirelessnetadapter/default.htm]here[/url] ]can only do a/b/g not n.

Success! I enabled UPnP on the router and BAM! Nat is OPEN! wOOt! I didn't forward any ports. I didn't use DMZ. here's a link espaining the UPnP [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play]CLick[/url]

N routers start of in greenfield mode, meaning they broadcast in a,b,g, and n. You can then choose to switch to all-n for a speed boost, if you so desire.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] spawq OK! Success! After a small snafu with my ISP [It's Fiber to the Premises so I don't have a modem just an ONT. So I had to use my old wired [Dlink] rtr as the "modem". It's still connected to the net and I've got the wireless Belkin plugged into the Dlink] I'm up with a laptop [with an internal N card] and the MS Xbox 360 wireless adapter piggybacked on teh back the the 360. Yeah! Well, one problem: I'm now at moderate NAT. I used to be open. I played a COD4 game with no real probs [tho sometimes my teammates voice was a little garbled, and I don't know if they could hear me. Even tho the active mic symbol showed up when I scratched the mic or talked. Then I tried a rocket race in H3 with success. And my teammate seemed to hear me, but was distracted by a person setting next to him. I'm going to try to open up the NAT. But on my old wired Dlink I had to set the xbox to a static manual ip and port forward it to open the NAT. On the new wireless router everthing is set to auto assign. Any good tips? thanks! [/quote] Give your Xbox a Static IP. 192.168.2.3 as IP and 192.168.2.1 as main gateway worked Great. oh and shut off ALL security settings and turn on UPnP.

[url=http://www.noddegamra.co.uk/problems-with-xbox-360-live-nat-s ettings/3/]Try this[/url]. It worked for me...

OK! Success! After a small snafu with my ISP [It's Fiber to the Premises so I don't have a modem just an ONT. So I had to use my old wired [Dlink] rtr as the "modem". It's still connected to the net and I've got the wireless Belkin plugged into the Dlink] I'm up with a laptop [with an internal N card] and the MS Xbox 360 wireless adapter piggybacked on teh back the the 360. Yeah! Well, one problem: I'm now at moderate NAT. I used to be open. I played a COD4 game with no real probs [tho sometimes my teammates voice was a little garbled, and I don't know if they could hear me. Even tho the active mic symbol showed up when I scratched the mic or talked. Then I tried a rocket race in H3 with success. And my teammate seemed to hear me, but was distracted by a person setting next to him. I'm going to try to open up the NAT. But on my old wired Dlink I had to set the xbox to a static manual ip and port forward it to open the NAT. On the new wireless router everthing is set to auto assign. Any good tips? thanks!

Well, after searching the net I've found that a few folks have successfully used this router with the 360's wireless adapter. My case for concern, though, is that lots of ppl said they had trouble using the router in general. Seems though, that the complaints tapered off about 4-6 months ago. I think that newer patches/drivers have fixed alot of the earlier problems. [ Although there were still some bad reviews even after this timeframe.] I'll go ahead and install it and see how it goes. I'll update this thread with my results. wish me luck

Thanks for the input. The router has backwards compatability for b and g and I think can might do a also. Was there any special tweaks you had to adjust, or was it pretty much follow the directions that came with the router? thx in advance! btw this is my router: [url=http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=273526]click here[/url] [Edited on 01.01.2008 4:33 PM PST]

Cool. Can your router run an a, b, or g network as well though? Or are you sure your adapter is working on an n network? Maybe an update to the wireless adapters made it possible. It's interesting to know though, if I move (which will probably be soon) I will consider an n router.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] icefirei Good luck. Last I heard the n network wasn't that reliable yet. The Xbox 360 wireless adapter will not ([url=http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x/xbox360wirelessnetadapter/default.htm]according to this[/url]) run on an n network though, sorry. I'm on a g network though, on a Netgear router that works well from pretty far away (I can use wireless at any of my immediate neighbors' houses).[/quote] Ive got a Belkin n, and my wireless adapter works 100% fine.

Good luck. Last I heard the n network wasn't that reliable yet. The Xbox 360 wireless adapter will not ([url=http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x/xbox360wirelessnetadapter/default.htm]according to this[/url]) run on an n network though, sorry. I'm on a g network though, on a Netgear router that works well from pretty far away (I can use wireless at any of my immediate neighbors' houses).