Xbox360 Media Sharing

ED!

Don't know if I should post this in the games forum, but I'm having problems.

Right now I have my Xbox360 - it is being fed an internet connection through one router that is connected directly to my cable source. I have another router set up that is being fed a connection from the first router. My computer and laptop are feeding off this router. So basically I have my game system in the living room, and my computers in my room.

I used to be able to feed videos from my laptop to my Xbox, but now when I go into it, I get PC failed. I wanted to move all that stuff over to a higher capacity drive on my computer, but Windows Media Player 11 wont even recognize the Xbox (yes its on). I've tried to deselect the laptop connection (that the Xbox recognizes from Router #2, even though its on Router #1), but I don't even have an option to change the computer source. Searching online so far has yielded nothing since trying to narrow my question down only returns no results, and making it loose gets me nowhere.

The computer is running Windows XP SP2. The laptop is running Vista Home Premium. Before today I was at LEAST able to get videos from my laptop to the Xbox (only if it was WIRED; wireless the XBOX would NOT pick up the laptop) - now I can't even do that. Any help would be appreciated.

ED!

Update: Well it seems like the Xbox360 doesn't want to recognize anything not directly connected to the same router. Bummer -

Anyone know of a way around this?

Hail_Fordlip

I can make some guesses, but why don't you tell us exactly what you have as far as hardware?

It sounds like you have this:

Cable connection ---- Router1 ---- wired connection - xbox
|
L----wired connection - Router2 - wired or wireless connection to PC and laptop.

So is it true that there is a wired connection between the two routers, or are you using some type of bridging?

I assume the 2nd router that your PC and laptop are connected is doing network address translation, and both routers are probably doing DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, where the router supplies an IP address to computers or devices that ask for one).

Without knowing the exact models, the exact address scheme(s) that you are using, how everything is wired and what your level of comfort is, it would be hard to advise you, but I'll take a stab....

Router1 (the one with the cable connection on it) Public IP address is some ISP provided address, private address range is something like 192.168.1.x or 10.10.10.x or some variation there of. We will assume it's a private class C, and the router1 had a private inside address of 192.168.1.1 and that it hands out IPs in the range 192.168.1.10-192.168.1.100 or some such.

Router2 (the one with the laptop and computer) probably has it's internet/public connection plugged into the private side of Router1, so it gets a private IP from the DHCP server in Router1, then does NAT (network address translation) for traffic from the OTHER set of private addresses it hands out to laptop and PC.

I assume Router2 exists because you need to provide wireless to the back side of your house, else a small 20 hub/switch would do what you want. So what you need to do is STOP routing through Router2 (assuming again that you are not doing some kind of wireless bridging, etc).

Using the computer or laptop connected to Router2, you can set the Internal private IP address of Router2 to a value inside the range of Router1, but NOT inside the DHCP range that Router1 hands out. You may have to temporary manually change the IP address of your computer to keep talking to Router2 during this operation, and if you don't feel comfy doing that....

So again, if Router1 had an internal IP of 192.168.1.1 then Router2 might be assigned an internal IP of 192.168.1.200 (make sure you copy the subnet mask). DHCP would then need to be turned off on Router2. You could THEN move the wired connection that is plugged into Router2 (from Router1) from the Internet (public) port on Router2, to then Private (Ethernet 1-4) port on Router2.

If it works correctly (and again, depending on your hardware), then you would be bypassing the routing functionality of Router2, and just using it as a switch (for the local ports) and wireless broadcast and reception of packets it gets from it's wired connection. Router1 would provide IP addresses via DHCP for all hosts connected to Router1, and Router2.

The internal interface of routers, the xbox, and the 2 computers would then all be on the same IP subnet, and able to communicate without NAT between them. Should fix the problem... maybe! :P