xbox live problem
 

My son keeps getting bumped out of xbox live, while the system goes into a troubleshoot mode. The system never finds a problem but nevertheless continues to go into this "system test" mode.. A neighbor of mine told me to find out what my trigger port setting should be for either xbox live or the game Halo 2 (in this case) is and "use tcp" and enter this information into my router settings. I do not really follow this, so I would just like to ask this forum if this makes sense to anyone here? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

OK let's see. He is playing Halo 2 and all of the sudden he get disconnected from the DSL connection?

What happens when he is playing and gets disconnected? Does he go back to the xbox main menu? or is he in the Halo 2 game menu?

Keep it simple...have you tried connecting the xbox directly to the modem...bypassing the router. If you are sure it is your router and have router skills....
If you don't have router skills I would say try to get the router settings back to factory and maybe update the drivers. It should be simple connect and play.

he does not go to the main menu, it is like he is kicked off the game and he is given a choice of either troubleshoot or cancel, the cancel brings you back to main screen and the troubleshoot goes into a self diagnostics where there is never anything wrong found. It is annoying as you can well imagine.

Has this always happened, or is something that just started up?

Who's your ISP?

Is this your current setup?
DSL ---> Router ---> Xbox

yes it has always happened, sometimes not as often though.
I have charter for an ISP
and yes that is my current setup.
my router is a belkin.

first off make sure you have the latest firmware for your router. make sure you have the UnP turned on in your router settings. what that will do is open the correct ports for xbox live and leave the open the duration live is being used. after the xbox is turned off or the live account is logged off the ports will close after an amount of time set by you or the router. what is probably happening is your hop count is set to short, so after a hop or two some packets are lost and boom you're disconnected. a standard hop count is 2 - 6 for home networks, try making your hop count 8 or 10. and if you're using wireless for god sake turn on WEP or WPA.

Bean, thanks, I tried what you said. Except the hop thing, I could not find that setting. Still getting cut out. Could it be the router? Are there some that just suck? Thanks again for your help.