Xbox 360 and the Netgear router
My brother called me late last night because he was having a problem with his Xbox 360 and NAT. Every time he went into the network status of his Xbox, the NAT setting would always say “Strict”. He wanted to open it up so that he could host games.
He called Xbox support and got the port numbers he needed to forward on his router. I walked him through setting up port forwarding on his Netgear WGR614 v5 router but it didn’t work. I checked the Xbox compatible router list and his router was certified if it had firmware version 1.0.6 or higher. His had 1.0.3 so he upgrade to 1.0.9. After the upgrade, it still didn’t work.
After a few more steps, I remembered that he had received a SunRocket Gizmo (VoIP) the other day. I asked how he had it setup and it was like this:
Cable Modem -> Gizmo -> Router
That was how SunRocket recommended setting it up so that the VoIP box could set traffic priority (QoS).
The Gizmo is just a modified Linksys router with fewer settings. I didn’t think the Gizmo was acting as a passthrough and that it may be blocking the ports. He checked the WAN IP address on his Netgear and it was showing 192.168.0.2. He connected to the Gizmo (192.168.0.1) and I had him set up a DMZ. I did this so that all traffic would be allowed to pass to the Netgear router/firewall. The Netgear WAN IP was set as the DMZ server address. It still didn’t work and this was getting frustrating.
As a last resort, I had him enable UPnP on the Netgear and restart the Xbox. Low and behold, it worked. The NAT test on the Xbox showed “Open”. The weird part is that the TCP/UDP port opened via UPnP was the same port he setup in port forwarding.
23.Sep.06 
Networking
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9 Responses to “Xbox 360 and the Netgear router”
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There might have been more ports that needed to be foward that Microsoft didn’t tell him about, or maybe he was fowarding TCP and not TCP and UDP.
I’d try and packet sniff to see what ports and protocols are going in and out of the Xbox 360, to spot the problem.
He was forwarding the same ports that opened up after UPnP was enabled. In fact, Microsoft told him more ports to forward and if they were TCP or UDP. He had the router set correctly, after I walked him through it, but it just didn’t want to work until UPnP was enabled on the router.
I can’t stand Netgear, but that’s another issue…
Hey,
Great little guide.
Unfortunately, i have exactly the same problem and none of the above help
Same router, basic adsl modem (no routing capabilites) and no matter what i forward or if Upnp is on or off it still shows up as strict.
Any ideas?
You could try setting a DHCP reservation for the Xbox (if it’s not static) and then enable UPnP after removing any other forwarding you have done. This will insure that the Xbox always has the same IP.
You could try setting the IP of the Xbox as a DMZ server just to see if it works. Keep in mind that all traffic will be able to pass to it so I wouldn’t leave it like that.
upnp worked fo rme.. port forwarding did not (same port)
I tried everything (Port forwarding, static IP, etc…) I totally ignored several recommendations to upgrade my routers firmware until I had no other options…Low and behold, after updating my firmware, everything worked perfectly!
UPGRADE YOUR FIRMWARE BEFORE DOING ANYTHING!
I was using a netgear router
I think netgear should change these routers due to the fact that everyone with this router has problems. It just plain sucks. Mine will turn off right in the middle of gameplay and reset itself resultin in me losing connection to xbox live
I cant connect my xbox to my router. netgear wgt624. im using ethernet cable and i upgraded my firmware. but still no luck. any suggestions?