Need Help

[Kenter]

This has turned out to be a very long post, please bare with me.

  I have the Linksys WRT54GS Router and I have been having problems with the Xbox live service. So I spent some time surfing and found this website: http://live.tommccann.net I followed everything to a T and when I run a connection test from the Xbox 360 it tells me my NAT settings are moderate. From there I went surfing again and found out that I should have power cycled everything. After I waited for everything to finish it's power cycle. I then ran the connection test from the Xbox 360 it said that my NAT settings are open. So I left it as it was and had no problems on Xbox Live. This morning I try to play and I get some of my old problems before I visited the aforementioned website. So I check all the settings on the router and they are just as I left them before.

 Then I decided to run the Connection Test from the Xbox 360 it tells me that I have Moderate NAT again. I then proceeded to do a power cycle today just out of curiosity. Then it says I have open NAT I leave it as it is for a few minutes and then run another connection test again and it says moderate. In the space of about 20 to 30 minutes after the power cycle it goes back to Moderate?

Any and all advice is welcomed!! Thanks, Kent J

[Rob Pomeroy]

What do "moderate NAT" and "open NAT" mean, I wonder...

[Kenter]

NAT means Network Address Translation, Moderate NAT: means it is not fully allowing outbound communication. Open NAT: means it is fully allowing outbound communication. I am trying to get "Open" NAT on my 360.

[Rob Pomeroy]

Yeah, I know what NAT is; presumably "moderate NAT" is XBox-speak for a NAT that doesn't serve all ports.  You'll need to check your router's firewall settings to see if there's anything that's overriding the NAT.  Try opening the relevant ports on your router, rather than just relying on NAT.