x-box wifi

hey chaps,

my stepson has a Xbox and is getting the xbox live package, he now wants to run an ethernet cable to my buffalo 801.11n wireless router which is on the floor above him, i don't fancy running a cable the equivelent of around 50ft, and he's adamant that only a £70 xbox wifi adaptor will work,

i'm pretty certain any will work, who is right, and if it is I, am i likely to come up with any problems connecting the thing up?


thanks,
Hugh

The official Xbox 360 WiFi dongle is only £50. You can just plug a WiFi bridge into the ethernet socket of the Xbox anyway.

sorry for my ignorance, what's a wifi bridge / what's it do?

£50 still seems a lot considering my buffalo 'n' adaptor which i use on my workshop pc (aprx 100ft from router) cost only £30 and is a much higher spec than the MS item,

regards,
Hugh

Converts from ethernet to WiFi. I think most of the generally available APs now can operate in client mode which is what you need.

ah right, i see what you mean, we have a spare adaptor so i'll have a look into one of these bridges.

from a similar discussion on another forum i just looked in on, it seems the problems lay with the drivers, the x box only like ms drivers, is this not the casr when using it with the bridge?

thanks,
Hugh

Definitely get the official Xbox part. It plugs in cleanly, snaps to the casing of the Xbox like it was meant to, works perfectly, and hasn't presented the slightest problem for me. Setting up a third-party wireless bridge will work, but it's a pain to do, requires you get a laptop into the act, and even after it's working it will need to be rebooted occasionally. But if you get the Xbox part, you just plug it in, turn on the Xbox, and enter all the network settings right there with the game controller and then it Just Works after that.

You will get slightly better network performance if you run the 50 feet of ethernet cable. A few extra milliseconds of ping time in online Halo, slightly faster game downloads, etc. If that's important to you, run the wire. Otherwise: Xbox wireless adapter all the way.

I do want to point out how awesome the Playstation 3 is in this regard: Wifi is built-in, as is HDMI, I didn't need adapters for those things like I need for the Xbox.

The official WiFi dongle is a USB device. The Xbox only supports certain chipsets as it has to load a driver.

The ethernet<-->WiFi bridge plugs into the ethernet socket. The Xbox just thinks it is using ethernet like normal.

thanks guys, thnk i now have the answers i required!

cheers,
Hugh.

I concur. My roommate tried going with an aftermarket thing (some gamer wireless hub if I remember correctly) and it was just too hard. He broke down and got the Xbox part and had no problems with it. Since he moved the machine back to the AV rack he went back to wired, though.


I was never able to get my PS3 wireless to work. I'm not sure if the signal wasn't strong enough for it or what. The Wii, which is on the same rack right below the PS3, had no problems at all and was the easiest wireless setup I ever had to do.

I never had the slightest problem with mine, in fact it got a better signal strength on a weak signal than a laptop sitting in the same room got. Perhaps yours has faulty hardware? Is the Wii showing a weak signal strength on its meter?

Also: Sometimes you can poke at the settings of the wireless router to make those sorts of things work; changing the type of signal, the security settings, or the way it manages the wireless channels.

For reference on the PS3, the WiFi antenna and bluetooth antenna are located on a small board that is at the front of the machine on the left. On units with the card reader, it's under the flat plastic when you lift the lid to get to them.

Maybe placement is affecting it somehow. I haven't used the wireless on mine personally, as I have a small hub and the powerline ethernet adaptor behind the home entertainment center to connect the PS3, Wii, 360, ReplayTV and AppleTV units.

It could very well be faulty hardware. It doesn't bother me enough to worry about it, since there is a hub on the rack below the PS3. My wireless is pretty goofy though, some things have no problems at all with it while others can't connect to it to save their lives.