Problems with routers, Xbox360s, and UPnP.
March 7, 2007 1:09 AM   Subscribe

My cable connection keeps losing connection when UPnP is enabled, but I need it enabled to keep my Xbox360s connected. Why is this happening?

First of all, my house has 6 TVs, 2 laptops, and Vonage VoIP on our Comcast cable connection. I bought the linksys wrtg54g router when the linksys befw11s4's wireless stopped working, but I've since switched back to the befw11s4, and it works pretty good now.

Now on to the question.. my routers have always lost their connection every couple days, but would connect again if I manually reset the router. It has happened with both my linksys befw11s4 router (the one I'm using now), and with my newer linksys wrtg54g. This wasn't such a problem for me, until my friends and I wanted to use more than one Xbox360 on my connection. We hooked them all up to the same router, and the Xbox360s all lost connection about 10 minutes after connecting. The connection was only lost on the Xbox360s, not on any TVs or laptops. Comcast told us that we didn't have enough bandwidth to run the Xbox360s all at once, but we used to use 4 PS2s all at the same time with no problems whatsoever. I finally solved this problem of the Xbox360s cutting out by updating my router's firmware and enabling UPnP, but now the laptops and the VoIP both lose connection very frequently with UPnP enabled. It seems that the connection is fine with UPnP enabled until a second or third laptop connects. I've been switching UPnP on when I use the 360s, and off when I'm done, but that's a hassle, and I'm sure this problem is not normal. I don't think it's the router because it happens with both of them, but I'm not sure. Also, Comcast hasn't been much of a help with this situation. Even the routers cutting out every couple days and needing a hard reset to connect again is weird to me, so this issue with the 360s and the UPnP further frustrates and confuses me.

Anyone have any ideas on what could be the problem here? Thanks.
posted by CliffDiving44 to Technology (1 answer total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
A number of questions pop into mind:

1. Which router does this happen on, and what firmware are you running on the WRTG54G ?
2. Have you tried setting the channel on the router to 1,6 or 11 (instead of Auto)?
3. Are you using XP and WZ for configuration? It is flaky sometimes.
4. Have you tried using static IP addresses instead of DHCP?
5. The router should be set as the UPnP server, but make sure. There might be a chance it can be set as a UPnP client.
6. Is everything using Wireless G? Are you set to use A/B compatibility mode? Have you tried changing these settings?
7. Is there enough wireless bandwidth to handle everything connected? Try seeing if you can set one of your wireless routers to run only as an access point (not in router mode), and associate some items to one, and other items to the other router. You only want one router, so be careful here.
8. Can you disable UPnP in your VOIP application? I've heard Vonage users having problem with UPnP in the past.

Maybe this will spur others who may have other ideas.
posted by stovenator at 12:48 PM on March 7, 2007


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