Should i send mine back???

[jonnyc4t]

for a really long time i thought it was my internet that as booted me from online games. "you have lost connection with the host" whatever bs message it gives. tonight i was playing a game of madden, my internet was FLAWLESS... however i still got booted. i get booted from online games ALL THE TIME, however my xbox live doesn't give me the message saying that i've disconnected from the internet. is this a problem with my 360?? i can't stand not being able to play games online, it's all i do. should i send it back and get a brand new one? if so how do i go about doing that? i'm not sure if i still have my receipt. i need help!!!

[TRIGGER M4N]

I really don't think this has ANYTHING to do with the 360, but your internet connection itself.

[Kicker]

What kind of company/ connection can play a role because apparently some dont work so well with your 360. (At least that is what support told me when i had really slow downloads for about two weeks.)

Another thing that alot of pepole have troubles with is the router they use.

[jonnyc4t]

Originally Posted by Kicker

What kind of company/ connection can play a role because apparently some dont work so well with your 360. (At least that is what support told me when i had really slow downloads for about two weeks.)

Another thing that alot of pepole have troubles with is the router they use.

i have a dlink 604 router, it's xbox live compatible. says it right on the box/on their site. my internet provider is comcast. i'm running my internet into a router, then into a hub which splits to my pc/xbox 360. i don't think this would be the problem awhile back i tried eliminating the hub altogether and i still get booted. this is so frustrating idk what else to do. i've tried configuring my router so many different ways and nothing seems to work.

[Kicker]

I think They said that a comcast cable connection sometimes dosent work. I am not sure. Check with the xbox support line. If that dosent work then check with your ISP.

[Curry]

Are you on a cabled connection that also has a PC connected to the same hub? Do TCP-based connections (like MSN or long downloads) survive while the game dies? Does your Xbox 360 report NAT as Open, Moderate or Strict on the network analysis screen? Have you tried plugging in a laptop on the exact same cable as the 360 and do a long download (just download a service pack from downloads.microsoft.com)?

I highly doubt the 360 is at fault, the symptoms you describe scream 'unstable connection' in capitals, but that means it should be reproducable with a computer as well.

[jonnyc4t]

Originally Posted by Curry

Are you on a cabled connection that also has a PC connected to the same hub? Do TCP-based connections (like MSN or long downloads) survive while the game dies? Does your Xbox 360 report NAT as Open, Moderate or Strict on the network analysis screen? Have you tried plugging in a laptop on the exact same cable as the 360 and do a long download (just download a service pack from downloads.microsoft.com)?

I highly doubt the 360 is at fault, the symptoms you describe scream 'unstable connection' in capitals, but that means it should be reproducable with a computer as well.

yes there is a pc also connected to the hub. i'm not sure about long downloads survivng i'll have to try that out. xbox live shows nat as open, i made sure of that in order to play everyone over xbox live. very rarely i get some aim lag on my computer, i'll have to give my cable company a call.

[Curry]

The reason I ask about the long downloads is that I suspect your internet connection is getting short hiccups regularly. This is often caused by weak neighborhood cabling for ADSL or cable.

PC games usually use UDP for multiplayer gaming, which is hardly sensitive to real hiccups (you'll just get a lagburst). Xbox Live uses mostly TCP as far as I know, which is far more reliable than UDP if the underlying internet connection itself is stable.

Anyway like I said I highly doubt the 360 can be to blame for the problems you describe. If you call the cable guys they should be able to measure your line quality from their location, but it helps if you test whether long downloads work fine.

Additional questions: do you ever get messages like "The connection was reset" or "500 Internal Server Error" at random while browsing the internet, while a simple refresh does show the page in question? And have you tried swapping the ports used by the PC and the 360 in your hub to exclude the hub from causing problems? Lastly, are you aware that hefty internet usage by other computers on the same internet connection may cause 'drought' problems for the Xbox 360?

[jonnyc4t]

Originally Posted by Curry

The reason I ask about the long downloads is that I suspect your internet connection is getting short hiccups regularly. This is often caused by weak neighborhood cabling for ADSL or cable.

PC games usually use UDP for multiplayer gaming, which is hardly sensitive to real hiccups (you'll just get a lagburst). Xbox Live uses mostly TCP as far as I know, which is far more reliable than UDP if the underlying internet connection itself is stable.

Anyway like I said I highly doubt the 360 can be to blame for the problems you describe. If you call the cable guys they should be able to measure your line quality from their location, but it helps if you test whether long downloads work fine.

Additional questions: do you ever get messages like "The connection was reset" or "500 Internal Server Error" at random while browsing the internet, while a simple refresh does show the page in question? And have you tried swapping the ports used by the PC and the 360 in your hub to exclude the hub from causing problems? Lastly, are you aware that hefty internet usage by other computers on the same internet connection may cause 'drought' problems for the Xbox 360?

First off thank you so much for all of your help and suggestions so far, i've posted on many forums and got little to no response. While browsing the internet, sometimes the page won't load but a refresh after a few moments will fix it. If i do call up my cable company and they tell me it's a weak connection in my neighborhood how do i go about playing games over xbox live? that's my main reason for owning a 360 is online gaming. i am aware of the hefty internet users by my family on the same network as me maybe being a problem for internet lag, i've made sure that no downloads or p2p programs are open on any of the pc's and to no avail it still boots me.

Never have i received those messages you've stated above.

[Curry]

First off thank you so much for all of your help and suggestions so far, i've posted on many forums and got little to no response.

Most gamers don't know much more about computer networks than how to plug in an ethernet cable

While browsing the internet, sometimes the page won't load but a refresh after a few moments will fix it.

That does sound like packet loss problems. Does this happen regularly?

Meanwhile, this may be a very interesting page. Especially this one piqued my attention:

We were having the same problems with our cable service. Someone suggested plugging the modem into another source. Problem solved.

Apparently cable modems are very sensitive to any fluctuations in power.

For testing this one is very helpful:

Broadband reports has some tools that are very useful - 'Line Packet Loss Testing' for one - "Packet loss tests on your line, including identification of any problem routers en-route to you.". Also 'SmokePing' and 'Speed Test'.

You can also test from your own computer. Go to Start menu, "Run Command", "cmd", and in the command window run "ping -t www.google.com". This should more or less consistently give the same message with the same time every second, ad infinitum. You should monitor it for a while to see if the time-attribute remains stable, and whether it shows packet loss occurring. You can just let it run for an hour too and then use ctrl-C to stop it, it will give then a report similar to the following:

Ping statistics for 66.249.85.104:
    Packets: Sent = 79, Received = 79, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 27ms, Maximum = 44ms, Average = 28ms

Essentially the Packets Lost percentage should be below 1%, and the Average round trip time should be more or less the same as the Minimum time.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Curry

Packets: Sent = 79, Received = 79, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 27ms, Maximum = 44ms, Average = 28ms[/code]Essentially the

I'm guessing 27ms isn't too slow relatively speaking. What time IS slow? 50ms? 60ms? At what point do you say, wow that's slow.

[Curry]

Originally Posted by Chris

I'm guessing 27ms isn't too slow relatively speaking. What time IS slow? 50ms? 60ms? At what point do you say, wow that's slow.

For transatlantic connections anything up to 150ms is normal in theory (try pinging www.xboxic.com from the US, the server's in Amsterdam). Up to 200~250ms is possible, beyond that is problematic.