Subscribe by EmailHOW TO: Cheap Wireless For Your Xbox 360
October 2, 2007 by Kiltak |
This project will help you change a cheap wireless router into a wireless receiver for your Xbox 360. The total cost of this project can be as low as twenty or thirty dollars, compared to the one hundred dollars Microsoft wants for their little wireless dongle.
Also, please note that if you are NOT a technical person, you are better off getting Microsoft’s official wireless adapter. The cheapest place where you can get it is at Amazon.com, right here
* This tutorial assumes you already have a wireless router to send out wireless access to the Xbox 360.
Parts Needed:
- Xbox 360, any version
- Three Feet or more of Cat 5e Cable (Ethernet Cable)
- Wireless Router
- DD-WRT firmware
With the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation 3 having built in wireless access, it has always been shameful to tell others I know that the Xbox 360 doesn’t have the same feature. If the inexpensive Nintendo Wii can have it built in, why can’t the Xbox 360?
Well with a change of the firmware on a vast variety of wireless routers, we can enable a feature that much more expensive wireless routers have by default: becoming a wireless receiver.
Before we begin, an explanation of the DD-WRT firmware is needed.
From the DD-WRT Wiki:
DD-WRT is a third party developed firmware released under the terms of the GPL for many 802.11g wireless routers based on a Broadcom chip reference design.
In the most basic of terms, DD-WRT replaces the router’s administration software, and allows access to a variety of different advanced features.
Purchasing the Proper Wireless Router
So first we will need to acquire a wireless router that allows use of this software. You can pick one up from eBay for around twenty or thirty dollars. Even better, you can purchase routers that already have the DD-WRT firmware installed, so if you are not into going the more advanced route, it is all set for you. These routers sometimes cost a little more as they sometimes come with a 1GB SD memory card inside, allowing you to use the router almost like a mini-server. That is overkill for what we need, but if you check out the router compatibility list for DD-WRT, you can surely find a router that will suit your needs.
Please note that the WRT54G, which is one of the cheapest and most famous linksys router around, works perfectly for this and can usually be found for less than $40! (As seen below)
I suggest purchasing a router of the same brand you are already using to send out your Internet signal, but if that isn’t possible, you might come across issues in getting the two wireless routers to talk to each other later on. I have used a variety of different brands and have yet to have any issues.
Installing DD-WRT
Once you have the router, we can begin the next step. Download DD-WRT from their website. Make sure you are using the right version for your wireless router, as stated in the DD-WRT version required list on the supported devices page.
The next step can look incredibly complicated and confusing, but if you spend a little bit of time reading the DD-WRT wiki, they have organized the information rather well.
A word of warning though. If you have never updated the firmware on a device before, you may not want to proceed with this project. Incorrect flashing procedure can cause your newly purchased router to no longer function.
I won’t go over all the installation instructions here, as it can be quite different depending on which router you have purchased. Check out the installation instructions on the DD-WRT wiki. They also give you tips on what you can do if the installation goes wrong.
Thankfully, the installation is usually quite easy, as most wireless routers have a system built in for upgrading the firmware, and this system can be used to install DD-WRT.
Setting the Router as a Receiver
Using your Ethernet cable, connect your computer to the router that is using the DD-WRT software. Browse to 192.168.1.1 using a web browser. It will ask for a user name and password. The user name will be root and the password will be admin. If you are using an older version of the DD-WRT software, you may not need to enter a user name.
Once you are in the DD-WRT administration panel, you will be able to change settings. What we need to do is change the router into what is known as client mode wireless. This will allow the router to receive Internet signal from whatever other wireless router you are using and share it out through the Ethernet ports on the back.
Again, this can be quite a lengthy list of instructions, and is totally dependent on your current network configuration, but the DD-WRT wiki to the rescue again, with a great list of tips, tricks, and numbered instructions on how to get it all to work.
The basic idea though is to get the DD-WRT router to get an IP address from your other wireless router connected to the Internet and then bridge that connection over to the devices we want to connect to the Internet.
Once you have gone through all the steps, your computer should be able to get Internet from the DD-WRT router. If you have not been able to get Internet access, DD-WRT has a great forum filled with knowledgeable people that are willing to help you out.
Connecting to the Xbox 360
If you have access to the Internet on your computer, then it is time to plug the connection into your Xbox 360. Move the DD-WRT router next to your Xbox 360, connect the Ethernet cable from the router to your Xbox 360’s Ethernet port.
Turn on your Xbox 360, and it should receive a connection. If you have made it to this stage then pat yourself on the back. You now have hopefully saved yourself enough to buy a few games from the Xbox 360 Marketplace, and have the ability to connect to the service and download them.
This same trick can be used to enable other devices to have a wireless connection, including a second computer somewhere in the house that you can’t easily put a wire to. I know this post will require a fair bit of reading on your part, but once it is complete, it is a great feeling. I spent less than forty dollars on the project, a savings of around sixty dollars plus tax, which I was then able to put into getting Zuma and a few other games for myself and the wife.
And if you’re not the DIY kind of person, you can always buy the Linksys WGA54G Wireless-G Game Adapter, which is a lot cheaper than Microsoft’s original xbox 360 wireless dongle.
David Peralty, a full time problogger for the last two years, writes about making money online to fund his geek living over on eXtra for Every Publisher.
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are you serious?? who is so broke they cant just go buy a wireless adapter… come on people dont be so cheap…
especially someone who has a fackin 360. i can afford a $400 video game but not a $100 wireless adap? woe is me!
A lot of people would rather not waste the money on a 360 only wireless router……
I personally like this because i have spare routers lying around, and never though getting one for my 360 was more important than buying the games themselves.
Oh plus a lot of the people that can afford a 360 and then only a game every so often- getting the 360 by saving money.
You gotta be KIDDING me! 100 bucks for a wireless adapter is flipping ROBBERY! I paid more than 3000 dollars to put my G.D. COMPUTER together and there is no WAY I would spend 100 bucks for a wireless network adapter.
I used a 19 dollar CompUSA wireless router, followed the procedure, and it works beautifully. I get my full G throughput and can even see the XBOX as a network device on my home network.
Jeez. 100 bucks. Why? So you can have one the same stinking color as your 360? Oh yeah, THAT’S worth 80 dollars.
Idiot.
What a bunch of douches, why would you waste $100 on something you can go out and buy for $20, its called thinking. “der der der…$100 woe is me” douche bag
Calm down people… he only made a comment… it’s nothing to get worked up about, there’s no need to flame him for it, even though that is a big money waster…
yea, i gotta agree….u a dumb a$$ for thinkin that somebody really wanna pay $100 for that piece of $hit. Do tha smart thing and save money. lol dumb a$$.
You can say “ass”, it’s ok.
Guess what f@gg0t I had to save for my xbox not everyone on this planet is a rich prick like you why not save $60 or $70 if you can. I’d say its worth a shot. Wanting to save some money isn’t cheap it’s thrifty. I’d rather spend $30 than $100. I could the other $70 for Gears 2 or something. Just cause I can buy an Xbox doesn’t mean I have a money tree in my back yard like you apparently do. So unless you want to mail me a check shut the hell up.
Very well put. I agree.
yeh i agree though i did buy the wireless router if i had of been able to do this i would of cause if u can save money u might aswell try
Its not that I am cheap.It is the idea of paying Billy Boy 100.00 for something that is only worth 20.00to 30.00 bucks.He is putting it up our kazoo you dumb #$%.
You got to be joking why £60 when you can get it for free??? your comments don’t make sense if they was giving away free games would you by pass them and go and pay for the exact same thing at the till ?? your comments make no sense
“are you serious?? who is so broke they cant just go buy a wireless adapter… come on people dont be so cheap…”
lol yeah saving money just isn’t your thing.lol Dumb. Its not about being broke that you cant afford the an MS Wireless adapter.
Its about you…. your so dumber you actually think that an adapter is worth $170au. only someone as dumb as you would pay that money.
Thee product cost bugger all to manufacture, so i don’t want to pay $170.
“Your so dumber”… It would actually be, you’re so dumb… Learn to speak before calling someone dumb.
It’s not about being cheap, its about not being so dimwitted and figuring out solutions to things you already have around the house.
In my case, i have the router already and need to provide a connection to my xbox on the opposite side of the house, well why not just use the wrt54g that is just laying around, and convert it to an access point? Instead of going and buying a $50+ adapter only for the xbox, now i can provide internet on the opposite side of the house without having to run a bunch of ethernet cable, and like the other guy said now i can use that money to renew my account.
Cheap or Smart? I think smart.
Well considering that I can buy non 360 wireless adapters for way less money it makes no sense. Imagine if the wireless controllers only took special microsoft batteries that were $5 than regular batteries, but were basically identical, I am sure if someone said HEY you can use regular old duracells in these with just a few easy steps you would probably do that to save money in the long run. The only reason I can think of that people approve of this adapter being ridiculously expensive is ignorant blinded brand loyalty… it something is gray and has Microsoft on it people will by it, the similar can be said about Sony, Nintendo, Apple, etc. I don’t know about you but I will always go for the cheapest and most effective.
not everybody can afford it jacka*. so keep your danm opinions to yourself unless you have something useful to say with out dogging on people.
Thank you
are you serious?? who is so stupid that they would spend $100 on a piece of shit wireless adapter?
ur an idiot
It’s overpriced, but the Xbox 360 wireless adapter works great. It is not a POS. Shame they charge so much for it.
Although a great idea the instructions are poor in this article (if there really are any).
However, personally I use Tomato firmware. It has a cleaner and simpler interface and works just as well with less features. For most people those features are useless.
Also, remember to secure your router with a password.
or you could just spend $30 on a wireless ethernet bridge. it’d be alot easier to configure and cheaper than the router. but if you’re doing online gaming you should try and find a way to get a wired connection…lag kills.
this really only makes sense if you have an extra router lying around and some free time.
or spend 4 more dollers and get the belkin router found here to do it with. PLUS i have never had any lgging with it
Even with the 50% reduction in wireless speed for the overhead, a lowly 802.11b will give you about 6mb/s, which is more than most internet providers are able to provide, so lag really shouldn’t be an issue.
lol OWNED WHAT A POS ..and to think peeps want credit for these SITTIN ON THE SHITTER iDEA’S
I cannot believe that an entire article was written to do an ass backwards setup that could much more easily be replicated with a little piece of technology called a WIRELESS BRIDGE.
Jesus christ. Talk about over-engineering.
wireless bridges usually only have one port.
This will give you 4 ports, plus with the hacked firmware you can convert the uplink you wont be using into another port. This means that for $60 I can connect both my xbox 360 and my xbmc and if I want up to 4 other devices. With a bridge I would have to purchase the bridge plus a switch.
I’m using this solution and it works great.
Take a low-cost router, add DD-WRT, configure it properly, and TA! DA! you’ve got the equivalent of a wireless bridge. In addition to that, you’ve got other ports that you can use to plug in game platforms and your DVR.
If you find yourself buying multiple wireless adapters or single-port wireless bridges for game platforms, you’re gonna get wallet-raped. Further, if you buy the right router, you can add an extended range antenna and achieve good signal levels for best speed.
I have an extra wiress router whooo!
I guess most people miss the point of this article.
1- This is for the DIYer out there, and using a bridge goes against that spirit.
2- A bridge usually cost twice as much as what is described here.
3- Doing this can be fun for those who never experimented with such a setup.
You guys might also want to check out our “Group Writing Project” contest.. we’re giving away more than $1300 in prizes, most of it in cash… (I’m the operator of this blog, so no, this isn’t spam)
this is dumb because alot of routers out there have bridging capibility built in. Also if you live in a trilevel like mine I have a router in the living room behind the tv for my tivo, hd-dvd xbox 360 andanything else that needs a connection down there. which is then bridged to the router up stairs.
total cost for both routers
42.00 after rebates
seems good to me.
Thanks! This is awesome for me as I have an extra router with DD-WRT already installed just sitting around. Been thinking about this myself, but never got around to it:)
Lol, I had this idea about 2 weeks ago when I bought my 360 to save me some cash. I had an extra linksys wrt54g laying around and after about 15 minutes of work, Xbox Live up and running.
well I will try this out sense I have an extra 14.99 Alink Router left sitting around. And exery week I swear Fry’s sells some sort of wireless router for less than 20.00 so yeah this Idea is very inexpensive and can work for people that want to save a few bux.
Jesus, this is old news. I did this over two years ago with the original Xbox. It is not that hard to do. Seriously, those calling people cheap are the idiots. Lemmie guess, they are probably the type to pay $1500 for a 50″ LCD/low-end plasma. Instead of dishing that money into a 720p HD projector and pull-down screen setup for 100+” of goodness. Business relies on being misinformed. I hope these people are not breeding.
Oh, yeah. Have a nice day.
thank you the first man here
So instead of buying the overpriced wireless adapter, or another cheaper, compatible one, this DIY is suggesting to go out and buy a new wireless router that you can potentially brick by flashing it wrong? Seems bass ackwards to me…
You’d have to work at it to brick the router. I cheerfully and quickly (same day of purchase) voided my Buffalo warranty. No worries.
You could also use an existing PC to bridge the connection if the PC has a wirless network card and a wired network card.
how can you do that??
Seems like overkill, but still do-able.
i have an old belkin sittin around that has the wireless client already a part of it. Takes about 5 min to set up…now where is that power cord. Wilhito is probably right to. people shouldnt be so ignorant with their money.
Seems like you are just running ad hoc mode.
just remember if you had your 360 hooked up before you doing the DD-wrt method, you need to reset your media sharing cause it changes the MAC address. Spend an hour or two trying to figure that out.
This article and some of the comments are pretty helpful. My apartment doesn’t have wired broadband outlets built in (just phone lines and cable hookups) and internet is meant to be done wirelessly, so I can’t hookup my 360 to a wired connection like at home, and I really don’t want to waste $100 just for the wireless adapter.
Ok whoever is bagging on this doesn’t know what this firmware is capable of, it can make your $30 linksys in to a router that would cost $600 it let’s you turn up the power so you can get a better signal also you if have 108mps linksys gs router you can use the speed boost feature that is if you have two of them. it also let’s you use it as a wireless repeater, for the dumb people here meaning it will pickup the signal from your first router and repeat it. wi-fi thouht the whole hosue is nice. try and find a wireless repeater for $30 didn’t think so! I got {xbox1/xbmc},xbox360,and my set top computer hook up to it try and plug three things in to your $30 WIRELESS BRIDGE nope!
And to bag on these guys trying to hook up some people up with free stuff, man get a life maybe you not a modder but i think it’s fun. you can always pay me to fix up your xbox with xbmc or 360’s dvd drive so you use the backups and the wii with a wiikey so you can run homebrew code.
This is really old news. DDWRT firmware is buggy. Tomato Firmware is far better with Enhanced QoS and better functionality.
Tomato Firmware rox
DD-WRT firmware isn’t buggy. My router never crashes or locks up, it’s been solid. I don’t use QoS except to lower the priority of P2P so the other family members can still get internet access. Not a problem with DD-WRT at the least. I’m even running a Beta release.
I’ve been using dd-wrt for years and this is a great idea. Thanks for sharing it with the geek community. All these asshats that are pissing and moaning obviously aren’t geeks and simply don’t get it. Most can’t spell at a third grade level, let alone setup a wireless bridge on dd-wrt
They are the idiots that deserve to pay $100 for a wireless adapter, lol. Cheers!
I really think this is a nice post. The technical details isnt obvious to just anyone, and if you see a little longer than your own nose you’ll se incredible potential with this. Not just for the xbox. Say if you (like me) have an xbox with chip, a 360 and a wii. Nice to have a router behind the tv setup, and extra nice to not have the stupid cable running thru the living room.
I actually own one of the overpriced however easy to use and install Wireless adapters. Although due to the recent HTPC build I did I can now use this idea and not have to worry about using up one of my PCI slots with a wireless card. I already use DD-WRT on the apartments main router so the interface isn’t new for me (btw terribly easy to install). Useful for a few things. Good post!
Sorry, I’m still confused. Hahaha. Care to explain? Thanks
Nevermind.I saw the 360forum. Thanks
This is great it increased the range on my 360’s WIFI by 2 bars
HELP PLEASE
I just did this set up, and finally got everything working… Except, I can’t get MCE to find my 360 ? I tried opening all the ports and lowering my firewalls.
Anybody have the same problem?
nice article dude.
and those of you bashing not being able/not wanting to spend a f* $100 on some piece of shit to connect wirelessly to the internet are f*tards. instead of paying $100 for some f* wireless receiver i should just buy some f* usb wireless receiver, but no, u cant install the drivers for it.
I agree with all of those who mentioned that setting up the wireless router as a receiver following these instructions (this web page + DD-WRT wiki) is *not easy*. It is meant for advanced users! I used this web page as a general guideline, and spent about three hours configuring the router as a receiver, reading carefully the instructions in the DD-WRT wiki. I was able to connect my Xbox 360 nicely to the internet. My “server” router is a Wireless-G Netgear and the “client-receiver” router is a Buffalo WR-G125. I payed $30 for the Buffalo router after rebate via CircuitCity. Pretty cheap compared to the MS adapter, and I learned a lot in the process.
I have used set this up and it is perfect for what I need. I had a spare router laying around as we switched providers (from cable to adsl) and the lack of phone lines doted around my house seemed problematic. Please note that I live in England where the Wifi Adapter for the 360 costs £65 ($130). So, If I go to the shops, buy the wifi adapter, come back and set up I recon 2 hours. This took me 1. So I’ve saved an hour and $130.
has anyone gotten two boxes behind seperate ddwrts to work? I’ve tried and they do not see each other. I’ve also been told that because the ddwrt is not a real ‘bridge’ that this setup cannot work.
Any input?
This is a great tutorial and after reading everything I could find this will be the way I will be going.
This is not somebody being cheap as I have a PS3 and and Xbox360 and I would do this over the adapter. I have heard nothing but bad reviews on this xbox360 wireless adapter micrsuck has put out for it. Plus for 100.00 I could get some booze and use one of my wireless routers I already have.
This was a great idea and being a tech guy in this field I should have thought of this.
THANKS
While I enjoy the idea of utilizing a cheap wireless router to gain bridging functionality (and other features), I prefer to just wire the house. 500′ of Cat5e, wall plates, jacks, and do it all myself back to my 24-port switch in the library. Adds value to the house at the same time. Until I got the cable fished/ran, just brought my laptop out, did connection sharing and was up and going fine. I also considered using a bridge (one Ethernet port) into a switch, and then plug in the peripherals.
Of course, this is call “Cheap” so, for what its describing, it gives you a lot of bang for your buck.
Good article!
my xbox360 wired network connection won’t work. Is there a self fix for it, such as buying a new card for it, or do i have to send it in to get fixed? does anyone know? is there a link somewhere?
Unless you must play Halo, just buy the PS3 instead. Cheaper, better graphics, free networking, comes with wifi, charagable controllers and a built in Blu-Ray player.
I have all 3 systems by the way…
Well i see that the adapter is wireless usb device, can you just use something that works the same way and just hook it up? i know every device need drivers, is it possible to load the drivers in the 360 and just use a different wireless device instead of the $100 one?
and question number 2…is it possible to connect with a wireless computer to the xbox…meaning…i have a laptop is connected wirelessly from a router that is not mine (lucky me, free internet) then bridge it to ethernet from the laptop to 360. like wireless to laptop to ethernet to 360. thanks