Xbox360 Media Sharing broken by WRT610N

[hewhoroams]

I had a functional media sharing network established with a server, 2 xbox 360's and a PC. All worked fine using a WRT54G as the router, and 2 wireless bridges to connect the XBOX360's.
Well I decided to upgrade my router to a WRT310N, which caused my media sharing to the XBOX not to work. The xbox can see the computer (usually), can connect to the internet, but once the PC is selected, it says 'cannot connect to the computer'.
I flashed the router to DD-WRT, and played with various settings, turning multicast filtering on and off, enabled QOS and optimizing for gaming. Nothing. It works extremely sporadically (about 10% of the time).
I plugged the WRT54G back in, and everything went back to working perfectly.

So I'm planning on returning the WRt310N, but my question is twofold: first, what might be causing this? Second, are any other new linksys router owners seeing this and should I be considering switching brands?

 

[eibgrad]

What are the make & model of the wireless bridges used by the XBOXs? Are they using stock firmware or dd-wrt? If dd-wrt, how are they configured ("client", "client bridge", AP w/ WDS, etc.)?

 

[hewhoroams]

One is a WRT54G running DD-WRT in bridge mode. The other is a D-Link gaming bridge.

 

[eibgrad]

One is a WRT54G running DD-WRT in bridge mode. The other is a D-Link gaming bridge.

What mode specifically in dd-wrt? "client", "client bridge", AP w/ WDS, etc. There are all kinds of possible bridges, each works differently.

I need the specific make and model of d-link too. I believe I know the problem but I need specifics!

 

[hewhoroams]

bridge 1: Firmware: DD-WRT v24-sp1 (07/27/08) st. Client Bridge mode

Hmm i cant seem to get to my Dlink bridge remotely right now, but it's not working with either one.

 

[eibgrad]

Is the PC connected via wire or wireless to the router?

You mentioned two xboxs, are both having the same exact problems, or only one, and which one (i.e., on which bridge)?

 

[hewhoroams]

the PC is wired to the router. Both xboxs are experiencing the same issue, so both bridges.

 

[hewhoroams]

Oh and other PC's on the network can access the shares just fine, wired or wireless.

 

[eibgrad]

Let's deal w/ one bridge and its associated XBOX at a time. Since I know the specifics of the dd-wrt bridge, let’s start there.

As long as the dd-wrt bridge is configured as "client bridge" and has the correct SSID, security, etc., it should work w/ your new router just fine. And you don’t indicate any problems when accessing the Internet from that XBOX (e.g., XBOX Live). So it certainly doesn’t make sense the PC should now be inaccessible simply because you switched routers.

[pc]<--wire-->[router]<--wireless-->[dd-wrt in “client bridge” mode]<--wire-->[xbox]

It wouldn't be a bad idea to update the firmware on that dd-wrt bridge. That's ancient by dd-wrt standards, it’s even pre-SP2. I don't know if that’s part of the problem, but let’s get it up to date. Maybe there’s some issue related to N routers (even ones running in mixed mode) that might account for this problem. There have been vulnerabilities found in SP1 anyway that will be addressed w/ the latest releases.

 

[eibgrad]

P.S. If that doesn't work, then run a wire between the XBOX and the WRT310N and see if it now works. If it does, then you know it's the bridge that's the problem, not the WRT310N.

 

[hewhoroams]

The xbox's are in places that aren't currently accessibly by wires (hence the bridges) so that might not happen anytime soon.

I'll see about updating the firmware on the bridge though

 

[hewhoroams]

I ran out of time and just returned it, I only had another day or so before I couldn't anymore.