If you are anything like me you may well have been given a shock at the cost of the wireless adapter for the Xbox 360 games console. Personally I think the price that Microsoft is charging for this bit of hardware is just taking the preverbal and I would rather install a wired network over giving Microsoft that sort of money for a wireless adapter.
Of course if you are just little bit technically minded you do not have to be beat nor do you have to bow down to the inflated cost of the official Xbox 360 wireless adapter. You can actually make your own Xbox 360 wireless adapter and it is not that hard to do so.
As an even bigger bonus to those of you wanting to try this DIY Xbox 360 wireless adapter you will be glad to know that the wireless adapter can be made for around 20 dollars if you happen to already have an old wireless router lying around. Basically all you will be doing is turning your old wireless router into a fully functioning Xbox 360 wireless router.
The Parts You Will Need.
- Xbox 360.
- An Ethernet Cable.
- Wireless Router (to be converted).
- The DD-WRT Firmware
In order to make your own Xbox 360 wireless adapter you will be pleased to know that there is no rewiring that needs to be done. A simple change of firmware on your wireless router will enable an extra feature and turn it into a wireless receiver. The DD-WRT firmware is basically software that replaces the routers original administrator software and replaces it with software which gives you more features.
The firmware that you need to use is named DD-WRT firmware. An explanation of the DD-WRT firmware is below from the wiki website.
‘DD-WRT is a third party developed firmware released under the terms of the GPL for many 802.11g wireless routers baced on a Broadcom chip reference design.’
If you do not own an old wireless router that you can use for this project or the spare wireless router you have is not compatible with the DD-WRT firmware ( a list of compatible routers can be found here on the DD-WRT wiki site) then you can buy a cheap wireless router to use and it will still be cheaper than buying the official Microsoft Xbox 360 wireless adapter. My personal recomendation is the Cisco-Linksys WRT54G wireless-G router which you can buy from Amazon for around $40
Once you have your wireless router the first step to build your own wireless adapter for your Xbxo360 is to install the DD-WRT firmware on to the router. You will need to download the DD-WRT firmware. The firmware can be found and downloaded here. It is very important that you download and use the correct version of the DD-WRT firmware for the type of wireless router that you are using for this project. If you use the wrong version then this project will not work. You can check which version of the firmware you need for your router on the compatibility list.
Many people find that installing the firmware onto the wireless router a rather difficult and confusing task especially if they have never had any experience with flashing hardware devices. The method and process for flashing the DD-WRT firmware to a wireless router can vary quite a bit from router to router so for exact instructions on flashing (installing) the firmware on your wireless router please refer to the DD-WRT wiki website. You will find a full set of instructions on how to flash the firmware to your wireless router here.
Once you have succesfully flashed the DD-WRT firmware to your wireless router it is now time to setup the router as a wireless reciever which will be used to connect your Xbox 360 to your internet connection.
First you need to connect the wireless router to your computer using the ethernet ports and the ethernet cable. You will use the DD_WRT software to setup things up.
Use your web browser (chrome, firefox etc) and navigate to 192.168.1.1. This means that you type 192.168.1.1 into the address bar of your web browser. You will be asked to set a user name and password. It is advisable to set your user name to Root and your password to admin. Make a note of these.
Once you have successfully accessed the admin panel in the DD-WRT software you are able to change the necessary settings to make this work.
Change the router settings into client mode wireless. By doing this you are allowing the router to receive a signal from your main wireless router which is transmitting a signal from your internet connection.
Once you are able to use the internet on your computer via the ethernet port which is connected to modified router then you know you have been successful in building your own wireless adapter for your Xbox 360. Making sure that everything in your network works in harmony can sometimes be tricky but there is detailed instructions in setting it up here.
Now that you can access the internet through the newly modified router you simply connect your Xbox 360 to the wireless router using the ethernet port on the rear of the router and the ethernet port on the rear of your Xbox 360.
Pretty easy really isn’t it?
If you need to connect more devices to any spare ports on the rear of your new adapted wireless router then just plug them in and you are good to go. The router now works as a receiver router splitting the signal that it receives between its ethernet ports.
If this still all seems a little to much like hard work to you then you can always chose to just buy the official Xbox 360 wireless adapter. The cheapest I have found it was from Amazon.
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note:- If you are unsure on how to do this then remember that flashing your router can damage it permanently.
