Wireless Adapter Shorted?

[tvany03]

Last night as I was attempting to get new maps,My wireless Network B adapter may have shorted. There are 2 lights that must be on, 1 for the wires, and 1 for the signal. The signal light is continuing to stay off. THe actual adapter itself stays on but we think it has a short. HAS THIS PROBLEM ever occureed to anyone else? Because until we get a new one I can tplay.

[xtdcxballa]

oh yeah its happened to me plenty of times im on my 4 adapter and if this ever breaks live is pretty much over for me ... wireless sucks both of my nuts not just my left one anyways if u can directly connect to your router much much much better i cant cause its a good 150 feet to my router

[tvany03]

The router is in my sisters room which is bull shit, but im gonna hook up direct to my computer.

[Chief (n7x Dominance)]

you will have to use an ethernet crossover cable and you may get some major lag i dont know if you will but it seems like it would lag

[Zangief]

I can't give you much advise on the shorting out of your network adaptor, I don't waste my time with that nonsense for gaming.

What do you mean by hook it directly up from your computer? Do you mean running a cable from your xbox to the router? Because most wireless routers also have ethernet ports and you could just run a cable to the router, which is what I recommend anyways, but I understand it can be a pain to have cables running everywhere.

[tvany03]

IM GONNA hook up directly to my router for now. But i Could run a wire, like mastachief said, a crossover wire from a port in the back of my computer. it wouldnt be laggy though.

[Zangief]

how could you run a crossover cable from the back of your computer? The internet doesn't come from your computer, it comes from your modem/router.

[tvany03]

We have a wireless router that hooks up to our computer.

[FrkUout]

Sorry it took me so long to respond. Here's the skinny:

I believe you can use a cable from the computer but:

1. You would need 2 network cards installed in the computer

2. You would have to set up the computer to the internet connection sharing host and the xbox to get its IP address from the computer (DHCP on the xbox would do this).

3. You would have to use a cross over cable unless you have a spare network switch laying around.

4. Yes, it would probably be laggy as hell

This method should work in theory. It's just like sharing a dial up connection or using the computer as a gateway to the internet, but it would take some trial and error with the gateway and DNS addresses to get it to work. It may not even work at all. You should get the100 MBit per second (if you get it to work) through a computer sharing its connection but I wouldn't try it unless you have to.


Now for the rest:

Try resetting the wireless adapter with the reset button on the back on the access point or router. My wireless access point locks up sometimes and I have to do a complete reset on it to get it to work again (I do not use it for the xbox).

After the reset if it still doesn't work try a reset again but after the reset remove the power from it for a good 10-15 seconds. Also while your working on it go to the manufacturers web site and see if you have the latest firmware. I'll provide some common links at the end. DO NOT upgrade the firmware over the wireless connection. Do it from a computer connected with a cable.

I would suggest if your going to use wireless then spend a little extra and get the wireless-G (54MBit). Of course make sure that if you're using a wireless router that it supports wireless G.
You'll see a big difference in the amount of less lag that you would have. The wireless B adapter is only going to give you 11Mbit per second and the actual thruput is actually less which equals LAGGY BALLS!

Of course a cable is the best option because you will get the best connection that way (100Mbit per second bursting to 200 Mbit per second if you get full duplex operation). Keep in mind you can only run a cable for 300 feet before you need a switch, hub, signal booster or router to boost the signal.

One last option is if your computer is connected by a cable spend about $40 on a network switch and connect the cable from that goes into the computer to the switch then run one cable to the computer and another cable to the xbox. Then all the cables will be just in your room and not ran all over the house.


The Links:
Linksys Support

Dlink Support

Netgear Support Site

Microsoft Support Page for Their Routers

[Zangief]

OMG, I love you rick.

[roggie2499]

Was that a copy/paste for part? or is that ALL memorized?

[tvany03]

We have all that stuff needed, however it wouldnt be like dial up because of the strength of our network cards.

[FrkUout]

It's all learned...

Anyway TJ network cards don't have a "strength", they have a connection speed. I used the analogy of sharing the internet connection like you would on dial-up or satellite internet. How do I know...because I used to do it here at the house. Most network cards are of the 10/100 Mbit per second variety. What does that mean you might ask? It means that the card will work on a 10 Mbit per second LAN or a 100 Mbit per second LAN and it will auto switch to the best speed available on the network. Like I said before, you'll probably see lag because you're using the computer as the middle man now so it has to process all the data from one card to the next.

Even though there are 2 cards in the computer all information will flow through the processor, ram and motherboard busses before being routed out the second card. Which also means that Windows has it grubby hands on it as well.

If you have everything then that's great but I would do the last suggestion from the earlier post if possible. ;D

[roggie2499]

I feel stupid... Computers has always been my strong point...

[Chief (n7x Dominance)]

then roggie you are a failure lol jk

but what i was going to say was nice job rick on your in depth explanation
ill come to you first if i ever catch my computer on fire or just delete every system file lol jk
you are definitely a computer tech god!