Print

[fallen]

First of all a quick diagram of my current network:


Basically I am trying to get XBox A and XBox B to talk to eachother in system link games such as Halo over the LAN. The problem is that XBox B is the otherside of a wireless connection, and the only link to the main LAN is via a wireless PCI card in the PC there. I figured I had 2 obvious choices, to either get another AP and hub switch to bridge the 2 LANs, or install another NIC in the PC and connect it to XBox B via a X-Over cable. I vouched for the latter basically because I already have the hardware, and no money to buy another AP and hub In theory this should work, but my main problem is configuring the Win2K PC connected to XBox B so that it passes the connection to the LAN on the otherside of the wireless link, whilst keeping XBox B on the same subnet/IP range as XBox A. Sofar I have tried setting up an IP bridge between the NIC and the wireless card using this software: http://www.ntkernel....herbridge.shtml which apparently installed and ran fine with no errors, but alas didn't work. I also tried using Win2K connection sharing on the wireless card, but of course this put XBox B on a different subnet/IP range. As a last ditch attempt I tried switching on IP forwarding in the Win2K registry, but that did squat all also. Has anyone got any other suggestions, or know of some handy windows software which will do this for me? Just for the record only XBox A is modded to run other software.

[fallen]

hi
everything has a static ip, though there is a dhcp server running on the router for anything that should connect without a static address. all the pcs/macs and xbox A all talk to each other fine - the pc the otherside of the wireless just sees the connection as another nic so as far as its concerned it's connected directly to the hub. the only problem is xbox B because i dont have the hardware to establish a direct connection, which is why im trying to get it to 'pass through' the pc with the wireless nic installed. atm it wont see anything else on the network except the pc that it's connected to, and wont even get an ip address from the dhcp because the pc isn't currently passing it on. i'm led to believe i need to create an ip 'bridge' between the 2 nics installed on the wireless pc, and that winxp supports this natively, but unfortunately i only have win2k. if you can figure this out it would be much appretiated! thanks for your help

[MorfiusX]

On the PC that Xbox B is connected to: Windows Xp comes with the option to bridge 2 network connections. I'm pretty sure Win2K does as well. This reminds me to much of the questions on the MCSE exams...

You can create a static adress on any device on the network and still connect to the internet. You just need to have the default gateway set as the IP of the router. So on the PC connected to Xbox B and Xbox B, set the default gateway as the gateway of the router. Assign them static IPs if you want. They don't have to get IP's from the router. Then bridge the connection.

Also, if you conifgure the IPs statically, you will probably have to set the primary DNS server to the IP of the router as well so it can forward DNS queries to the internet.

[mrRobinson]

The keyword you want to look up is ICS (Internet connection sharing).  You just need to setup internet connection sharing on the pc connected to xbox B then that xbox will communicate with the rest of your network fine.

[Rohaq]

QUOTE (MorfiusX @ Oct 12 2003, 09:16 PM)

On the PC that Xbox B is connected to: Windows Xp comes with the option to bridge 2 network connections. I'm pretty sure Win2K does as well. This reminds me to much of the questions on the MCSE exams...

Yep, I did this: I've got two NICs, connected one two my router/modem combo, and another to my Xbox. I went into Network connections and highlgihted the two NICs, right-clicked and chose to bridge them. Worked well too. My Xbox was automatically assigned an IP and could access Live with no problems.

[MorfiusX]

QUOTE (mrRobinson @ Oct 12 2003, 04:31 PM)

The keyword you want to look up is ICS (Internet connection sharing).  You just need to setup internet connection sharing on the pc connected to xbox B then that xbox will communicate with the rest of your network fine.

If you set it up this way, and he's using a non 192.168 subnet, then Xbox B will be on a different subnet. Also, Xbox A will not be able to see Xbox B.

[mrRobinson]

ok why don't you post the ip scheme you have going so we can work with details.

[fallen]

thanks again for all the help i think now bridging is definately the way to go, but as XBox B and associated PC aren't actually in my house i haven't had a chance to try it yet i can't find anything which says win2k supports bridging which is the only thing that worries me, i'd hate to have to buy XP just to play system link games... oh and for those of you interested my IP range is on 192.168.1.x which i don't think is a particularly unsusal range to use. will let you all know if i get it working tonight

[Rohaq]

Awaiting your reply

[fallen]

QUOTE (Rohaq @ Oct 13 2003, 02:02 PM)

Awaiting your reply

well here it is -

I took the plunge and decided to make the upgrade to XP. I installed it as an upgrade from win2k rather than a reformat, always dodgy I know, but it isn't my computer so I didn't get a choice. Everything seemed to install fine, and as a standalone connection, the wireless still worked fine, the way it always had done. The caveat comes though when I build the bridge I get a BSOD around 30 seconds later :S This of course doesn't even give me a chance to configure the bridge, and I literally have a race after rebooting to delete the bridge before it BSODs again. I've installed all sorts of updates, though none of them netsh specific, updated all the NIC drivers etc etc and tried a force compatabilty mode using the command line as suggested in a MS bridging related article. So I'm pretty much stumped as to the next step - I have a feeling it may be related to the bridging drivers I installed under win2k from the link in my original post, so short of a complete reformat I don't really know how do uninstall/reinstall the netsh driver. All I can do now is go play Halo and see if a solution magically comes to me...

[mrRobinson]

what displays when you blue screen?  does it give you a driver or code?  set it so when it blue screens it writes to a log and look in there for clues to what is causing it.

[MorfiusX]

QUOTE (fallen @ Oct 13 2003, 03:39 PM)

QUOTE (Rohaq @ Oct 13 2003, 02:02 PM) Awaiting your reply well here it is - I took the plunge and decided to make the upgrade to XP. I installed it as an upgrade from win2k rather than a reformat, always dodgy I know, but it isn't my computer so I didn't get a choice. Everything seemed to install fine, and as a standalone connection, the wireless still worked fine, the way it always had done. The caveat comes though when I build the bridge I get a BSOD around 30 seconds later :S This of course doesn't even give me a chance to configure the bridge, and I literally have a race after rebooting to delete the bridge before it BSODs again. I've installed all sorts of updates, though none of them netsh specific, updated all the NIC drivers etc etc and tried a force compatabilty mode using the command line as suggested in a MS bridging related article. So I'm pretty much stumped as to the next step - I have a feeling it may be related to the bridging drivers I installed under win2k from the link in my original post, so short of a complete reformat I don't really know how do uninstall/reinstall the netsh driver. All I can do now is go play Halo and see if a solution magically comes to me...

I know it's a pain, but it's now time for you to reformat. The PC will run better in the long run.

[fallen]

QUOTE (mrRobinson @ Oct 13 2003, 09:42 PM)

what displays when you blue screen?  does it give you a driver or code?  set it so when it blue screens it writes to a log and look in there for clues to what is causing it.

beginning phsical memory dump....
Load of hex garbage
If this is the first time you've seen this restart your computer. If this is the second time or more try removing or uninstalling any recently added hardware or software

though that's just from memory. Unfortunately I'm home again and I won't get to tinker with it again for another 20 hours. I suppose that's 20 hours to work on persuading a reformat

[viewwin]

I have the same setup also, I pc over wireless with an xbox in my room.  I have bridged the wireless card with the onboard nic of my motherboard.  I check the dhcp server on my router and it is seeing my xbox and my evox displays the correct ip that my router gave it.  The problem is that my roommates xbox does not see it on the network.  I will try the same config on his computer because his computer is on a wired lan, and will see if the wireless card is the problem(right now his xbox is on the router, but i will try hooking up his xbox to his computer and return mine to the wired lan).

[MorfiusX]

QUOTE (fallen @ Oct 13 2003, 03:54 PM)

QUOTE (mrRobinson @ Oct 13 2003, 09:42 PM) what displays when you blue screen?  does it give you a driver or code?  set it so when it blue screens it writes to a log and look in there for clues to what is causing it. beginning phsical memory dump.... Load of hex garbage If this is the first time you've seen this restart your computer. If this is the second time or more try removing or uninstalling any recently added hardware or software though that's just from memory. Unfortunately I'm home again and I won't get to tinker with it again for another 20 hours. I suppose that's 20 hours to work on persuading a reformat

Well, here's my opinion. Windows runs 10,000% better when clean installed. That's just the nature of the beast. You could look through the event log to see when the critical error occured. But, this may or may not give you usable info. Where I work, when we get even the first blue screen, we reformat the pc and reinstall everything. We spend more time troubleshooting what is causing the error and fixing that one particular error than we do just starting from scratch. Also, M$ recommends that any OS be reinstalled every 6 months. I do mine about every 3.