Microsoft’s Xbox360 Wireless Adaptor vs Apple’s Time Capsule

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After months of putting off buying the Xbox360′s wireless adaptor due to it being overpriced, I finally just gave up and bought one. Happy to finally get rid of the Linksys Wireless-G Game Bridge that has been a problem since day one, it was just my luck to discover that I couldn’t connect to my wireless network. After about an hour of trying everything I could, I gave a quick google search and discovered others were having problems connecting to an Apple Time Capsule router also. I had waited so long to get the wireless adaptor for the 360 that I wasn’t going to give up.

My Time Capsule is basically an Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n Router with a hard drive built in. The router supports 802.11 a/b/g/n while the 360′s wireless adaptor supports a/b/g. My laptop is a/b/g and the only other device I connect wirelessly is my iPhone which is b/g. This left me with a few choices. Currently I run the Time Capsule in 802.11n with b/g compatibility running at 2.4Ghz.

I’ll spare the details of the hours of headache trying to get this to work by saying this: the Xbox360′s Wireless Adaptor does not work with Time Capsule…yet. Well thats not entirely true. Lets looks at what options we have:

802.11n (2.4Ghz) = Not Supported

802.11n (5Ghz) = Not Supported

802.11n (802.11b/g compatible) (2.4Ghz) = Not Working

802.11n (802.11a compatible) (5Ghz) = Not Working

802.11b/g (2.4Ghz) = Not Working

802.11a (5Ghz) = Not Working

802.11g (2.4Ghz) = Not Working

802.11b (2.4ghz) = Working

So out of 8 modes, 6 of which are supported, only 1 mode works. 802.11b is the only mode that allows the Xbox360 wireless to connect. Pretty worthless. Right now this looks to be a Microsoft problem as there are reports of the wireless adaptor not connecting to other draft N routers. Hopefully Microsoft will add support for Time Capsule in the Spring Dashboard update like they added support for Airport Extreme 802.11n routers in the Fall Update back in December. Until its fixed, you will either have to run your wireless network in 802.11b only mode or hardwire the Xbox360 using Cat5.

April 15th, 2008 in apple, games | tags: , ,

11 Comments

jakeApril 25th, 2008 at 10:52 pm

yea this doesnt work

krisApril 28th, 2008 at 3:55 pm

this worked… i did the 802.11b and i can connect… but it sucks that i need to downgrade to use…

edMay 4th, 2008 at 12:04 pm

I can confirm that this actually worked… Make sure you’re on WPA/WPA2 Personal encryption. I had mine on WEP previously, because the xbox live peeps said that was the problem. It wasn’t.

kcJune 6th, 2008 at 4:11 am

It works. After changing the TC to b only and WPA i had to reset the 360′s network setting to factory default and reconnect to the network.

prijsvragenAugust 20th, 2008 at 7:00 am

I can confirm this worked.

BrookeNovember 28th, 2008 at 6:55 pm

My TC only gives 4 options and they are all 802.11n? Can you tell me how to change this?

peterDecember 13th, 2008 at 6:41 pm

how do u change it to 802.11b

PLEASE TELL ME !!!!

eugeneFebruary 15th, 2009 at 8:44 am

Thanks, it works for me also

johnJune 7th, 2009 at 7:03 am

need an aswer for peter’s question

JamieAugust 15th, 2009 at 4:43 pm

Peter you go into your airport utility, go into manual setup, go to wireless, then you should see a drop down menu that says 802.11n (802.11b/g compatible) that should work.

ScottOctober 21st, 2009 at 5:13 pm

Good info, thanks.