How To Connect Your XBOX 360 to the Internet

So you have an XBOX 360 and your finally planning on taking your game online. Well there are a few different ways you can go about hooking your XBOX 360 up to the Internet and really depends on the household. A few things you will need before going online includes a hard drive for your XBOX 360, an Ethernet cable that will run from where your Internet modem is located to your XBOX 360, and you will also need to purchase a 12 month subscription to XBOX LIVE which is normally done after you've connected your XBOX 360 to the Internet.

The first way you can go about hooking your 360 up to the Internet is directly to a cable modem. This is the most common method people use to connect their 360 and will involver disconnecting your computer from the Internet while you play online. It's pretty simple to do if you do it in the proper steps. First thing you should do is turn off your computer, cable or DSL modem and XBOX 360. Then you should hook an Ethernet cable from the cable modem to the Ethernet port on the back of your XBOX 360. Then power up your cable mode and then power up your XBOX 360.

Some people may see an error about the IP address being incorrect. The main thing you can do is call your Internet provider and have them verify your IP address. Most the time you should not have to worry about this and should instantly work. Problems happen sometimes and you should call up XBOX 360 support for further assistance.

The second method and probably the most convenient method is using a router. With a router, you can pretty much hook up the 360 to the Internet and still have your computer hooked up as well. This way you won't have to worry about connecting and disconnecting your Internet connection to your computer. Installing a router can be difficult and can cause some problems if you skip a few steps in the process. Most routers will give you a very detailed installation method you should follow to successfully install it.

Once you have your router installed to your computer, just run an Ethernet cable from one of the empty ports on the router to your XBOX 360. Then you should have a few other ports left over for your computer, laptop and whatever else should need.

The third method and one that can cost you a little bit but offers a bigger convenience is the wireless method. If you have a wireless router, you can purchase a wireless adapter for the XBOX 360 and once you set that up to respond with your wireless router, you can have Internet access to your XBOX 360 as long as it's within range of your wireless router. There are obviously no wires involved in this and offers nice get away from running Ethernet cables around the house. The wireless networking adapter for the XBOX 360 will run you around $80-$90.

Depending on where your Internet hookup is located and where your XBOX 360 will be at, you can choose which option works best for you. A lot of people really enjoy the wireless hookup but will cost more money and there are some places where a wireless router will not reach. While you have your XBOX 360 connected to the Internet, you can also have access to music, videos, and recorded TV shows on your PC if you have Windows Media Center and getting all of this integrated is pretty simple and I will explain that in another article.