How to configure router to give XBox top priority / most bandwidth?

Question

Newbie here so go easy... and apologies in advance if I blow the community etiquette / rules! Here's what I'm trying to do:

I have a "D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N" wireless router and an XBox 360 w/ the old-style wireless connection thing (usb attachment)... I want to configure my router / network to give my XBox as much bandwidth as it wants, whenever it wants.

I have tried giving the XBox a unique IP (within my network) and then tweaking the router to treat that IP as a top priority application (using the router's QOS stuff). Problem is whenever I turn off the xbox, I can't connect to the network the next time I start it up. It seems the only reliable setting in the XBox is to use "Automatic" for the IP settings within the Network Configuration area.

Supposedly the D-Link ships with default settings that attempt to recognize a game console and give it top priority... but i've not seen good results (lots of stuttering / lag when someone else jumps online, etc).

Any suggestions?

thanks again!

Answer 1

QoS is the right choice. I don't know about the D-Link software, but I know that dd-wrt handles this just fine. I don't know if it's available in the D-Link firmware, but you may be able to set your QoS stuff using a mac address rather than an IP. that way you would still be able to use automatic address assignment.

The only reason I could think that would give you connection problems would be using a duplicate IP address. Try setting the static IP of your xbox to be on the upper end of your range. i.e. if your home network is numbered out of 192.68.1.0/24 space, try setting the xbox to be 192.168.1.200. This should take it out of the range of addresses normally used for DHCP.

Someone will un-doubtedly complain that this is a gaming question. I think it's a networking question.