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Xbox 360's Jamming Wireless Signals?

Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:01 PM
from the raspberry-i-hate-raspberry dept.
Wireless Networking XBox (Games) Entertainment Games Hardware
WirePosted writes "A report has emerged suggesting the Xbox 360's inbuilt wireless system for communication with wireless controllers and headsets is transmitting over a wide area of the 2.4Ghz spectrum, causing interference to WLAN's and other 2.4Ghz devices."
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Submission: Xbox 360's jamming wireless signals? by WirePosted (1178137)
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  • How long has the XBOX 360 been out? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by toupsie (88295) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:05PM (#21726502) Homepage
    I would think we would have heard of this problem long before now. There are million of these units and when they are not displaying the red ring of death, you think this problem would be shutting down WLANs worldwide generating numerous WTFs. Microsoft also sells its own USB wireless adapter for the XBOX 360. You think the wireless adapter would be nuked by the wireless controller if this was the case.
    • Yeah...this does sound a little suspicious. You think it would have been noted before. I don't have a 360 so I can't comment. What is the PS3 doing to avoid this I wonder?

      Note that if this is true and the 360 really is using the 2.4ghz spectrum, you could point to this as evidence that selling their own wireless gizmo separately to make extra cash kind of came back to bite them in the ass - Sony would have figured this out pretty quickly when the wireless internet and the wiress controllers didn't work w

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by coolGuyZak (844482)
        The PS3 uses the bluetooth protocol to transmit data, which was designed to share 2.4 GHz with WiFi. MS, as usual, has reinvented the wheel, poorly.
      • Sony and Nintendo both use Bluetooth controllers. Which is still 2.4GHz, but at least Bluetooth is fairly standardized and easy for other wireless device manufacturers to work around.c

        That said, the X360 has been out for over two years now. If this was a major issue I think we'd have heard about it long before now.

    • Sounds like FUD (Score:5, Interesting)

      by paranode (671698) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:30PM (#21726888)
      There's a lot of stuff that operates in this range. From the article itself it merely says: "It's not clear whether the signal disrupts the college's WLAN access points or students' wireless notebooks. There is some anecdotal evidence, however, that it at least affects other radios in the same 2.4GHz band." Basically the article just talks about a 'strange' 2.4GHz signal that they found and didn't know where it came from. Turned out it came from the XBox 360 (and that is admittedly his "best guess"). No evidence or claim in the article that it is interfering with any WLANs, he basically just says they need to do more 'systematic testing' (that is, putting a bunch of 360s in the room to see if they can cause interference).

      Nothing to see here...

  • Didn't notice (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bryansix (761547) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:06PM (#21726514) Homepage
    Just a little anicdotal evidence but I have a 360 in the same room at my PC which is on wireless and two access points in that room as well. They all work fine at the same time.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Cabriel (803429)
      I concur with this guy. I've been using a Wii (built-in WiFi), two laptops, and the Xbox360 within five feet of eachother for about two months, now, and we've been relatively free of problems. There is a new issue with one of the laptops losing it's wireless connectivity, but the Xbox360 has been around far longer than the problem, so I'd be very wary of trying to make that association.

  • Read TFNOTBOED (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ancient_Hacker (751168) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:08PM (#21726528)
    Read The Fine Note On The Back Of Every Device.

    Something along the lines of:

    (1) Tolerate interference from other devices. (2) .... something else that I forget....

    You see, the FCC does not want to have to certify that each and every $3 wireless mouse keeps its emissions within 0.2 KHz of 945.343 MHz at a field strength of no more than 330 microvolts / meter.

    Welcome to the Republican Spectrum of the Future.

    • Re:Read TFNOTBOED (Score:5, Funny)

      by SengirV (203400) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:17PM (#21726666)
      Welcome to the Republican Spectrum of the Future.

      But the Dems are in charge of Congress, so this shouldn't be a problem anymore, right? 'bout time you realize that problem is ALL politicians, you partisan hack.

    • Re:Read TFNOTBOED (Score:4, Informative)

      by operagost (62405) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:36PM (#21726996) Homepage Journal
      Are you thick? These are very old regulations, and they have nothing to do with any one party. You could have at least looked up the regs first instead of proving to everyone that you don't know what you're talking about. Class B from memory:
      • The device must not create any harmful interference,
      • The device must accept any interference that may cause undesired operation.

    • Re:Read TFNOTBOED (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mwilliamson (672411) on Monday December 17 2007, @02:07PM (#21728352) Homepage Journal
      But, amateur radio operators also have a band that overlaps part of the WiFi allocation, and part 97 rules apply. We indeed do have legal recourse if part 15 devices start to piss on our allocations.

      • True, provided that you can prove that a device covered under part 15 was indeed causing actual harmful interference, and not just transmitting as designed. Until amateur radio receives primary allocation status of its section of 2.4GHz, I doubt that any ham would be very successful at kicking a part 15 device off their local airwaves.

        Amateur radio has to comply with part 97, and the unlicensed devices have to comply with part 15, but the secondary allocation status for amateur radio (on 2.4GHz) puts the

  • Old News (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JedaFlain (899703) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:11PM (#21726574)
    This isn't really new news as shown by this [slashdot.org] article from 2005. It talks about Wal-Mart's problems with some of it's 360 kiosks causing problems with their wireless inventory system.
  • The ironic part to this is so many people have complained about the xbox wireless losing connection or just working just plain badly. I guess Microsoft didn't think how badly the controlers would interfear with the wifi card for the xbox.

    This isn't just a problem for microsoft though it will most likely be a problem with any console that deals with wireless lan access and wireless controllers that both function in the 2.6 spectrum.

    • Re:xbox wireless (Score:4, Informative)

      by CastrTroy (595695) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:39PM (#21727054) Homepage
      For the record, my Wii seems to have problems with the wireless. If I leave the WiiConnect24 on, after a couple days the wireless router stops responding, and it doesn't kick back on until I turn off the WiiConnect24 , even after I reboot the router.
  • I know we're supposed to hate MS and love the competition (and I do), but my wife claims that the Wii is also messing up the WiFi signal to her laptop.
    • Even microwave ovens use 2.4G. There are so many different comms using 2.4G it is suprising anything works.

    • Re:Not just the x-box (Score:4, Informative)

      by TheThiefMaster (992038) on Monday December 17 2007, @01:13PM (#21727602)
      I'd have thought that if the Wii was messing up a laptop's WiFi connection, it would also have been messing up its OWN WiFi connection. Coupled with the fact that it uses an international standard (bluetooth) for its wireless controllers, which is used by millions of other devices without problem, it seems unlikely that it's messing up WiFi signals.

      The 360, on the other hand, doesn't have WiFi, and has wireless controllers that use a proprietary (I think) wireless system, on the same frequency spectrum as WiFi. There's every chance that it interferes.
  • ...given all of the other hardware-related problems that Xbox 360 has had with overheating [news.com], brittle solder joints [ezinearticles.com], optical disk scratching [llamma.com], and general instability [slashdot.org].

  • This sounds a bit iffy (Score:5, Informative)

    by PJ1216 (1063738) * on Monday December 17 2007, @12:23PM (#21726758) Homepage
    A small college is experience problems with their new wireless network equipment in the presence of a few xbox's. however, apparently all over the rest of the country, in huge universities with thousands of xbox 360s... there's no problem whatsoever. the only bit that doesn't fit with this is that they said the IT staff had issues using their bluetooth headsets. now, the only comment i can make on this is that i think they have cheap bluetooth headsets. they said the 360 makes the signal even when its not turned on... just plugged in. i have both a ps3 & 360 virtually one on top of the other (a shelf plus a few inches of space in between) and the ps3's bluetooth controllers work just as fine as they did before i got the 360. so, all in all, i think this is a load of bull. the 360 has been out for way too long for this to not have been noticed. i think something else is screwing with their headsets & wireless network. or maybe its just the wireless network thats screwing with the headsets and they're looking for a scapegoat.
    • plus i have a wireless router in the same room about 2 feet from the consoles and its wireless n & b/g. n craps out on me every so often (even before the 360), but thats pretty much a given with it. i haven't noticed it get any worse with the 360 either.
  • I have two xbox 360's in my living room, mine and my roommate's. We're both using wireless controllers, and I have an access point literally 2 feet away from my roommate's 360, which puts mine about 4 feet away. We never have a problem with the wifi signal, or the controllers. I hate micros~1 as much as the next slashdotter, but this is total fud.

  • Apostrophe's used for pluralizing!?! (Score:3, Informative)

    by mikej (84735) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:38PM (#21727024) Homepage
    Seriously. Come on.

  • 802.11a? Anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Guppy06 (410832) on Monday December 17 2007, @04:58PM (#21731668) Journal
    Everybody has to make devices that use the same spectrum, meaning everybody wants to make devices that utilize that spectrum for the sake of cross-compatibility. This would be a non-issue were it not for 99% of home wireless networking hardware supporting b/g exclusively.

    I'm looking forward to the IEEE finalizing 802.11n if for no other reason than because I'll finally be able to get 5 GHz access points without paying through the nose for office equipment.

    • Re:Microsoft and Radio? Help us all.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by evanbd (210358) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:09PM (#21726540)

      It's bad because 2.4 Ghz is radio, carrying digital info, which due to the nature of the produced sign wave results in a signal distortion more commonly known as "bleed over". Without the ability to separate the signals by a large frequency, digital over analog bleeds all over the place.

      The hell? There is nothing magic about digital data that means you can't bandwidth-limit the outgoing transmission. There are plenty of digital radio protocols that use a very well defined slice of bandwidth, without any more bleed over than traditional AM or FM radio analog broadcasts. Just because the signal represents digital data doesn't mean you have to use square waves or something.

      I suppose we should all be thankful that radio engineers are better educated than the average Slashdot poster...

      (Of course, it's entirely possible there's something broken about the XBOX radio. It's also entirely possible it's just a spread-spectrum transmitter doing exactly what it's supposed to do in a largely unregulated piece of spectrum.)

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by beheaderaswp (549877) *
        "I suppose we should all be thankful that radio engineers are better educated than the average Slashdot poster..."

        Rather, I'd hope "radio engineers" would take notes from the Slashdot posters. This way Slashdot posters, who have to trouble shoot wireless systems going down for no apparent reason, don't have to argue with "radio engineers" over a problem that is reproducible.

        Also, you might want to ask why this "IT Director" (me) appears to know more about this problem than you do?

        At any rate I've seen the s

        • Re:Microsoft and Radio? Help us all.... (Score:4, Funny)

          by ajlitt (19055) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:43PM (#21727092) Homepage
          My license reads technician too. What is this "sign wave" you're talking about? Is it a stop sign? A sign from on high? I'm sure you can connect the dots in a QAM constellation to make many different signs.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by ajlitt (19055)
              Fine, then. How would viewing a plot of a sine wave tell you anything useful? Wouldn't you rather look at the frequency domain to see how well your equipment is staying within its part of the spectrum? Are you sure you know what you're looking at? You may want to save the HAM and IT rank-pulling for the users in HR.

              • Re:Microsoft and Radio? Help us all.... (Score:4, Informative)

                by thestuckmud (955767) on Monday December 17 2007, @02:01PM (#21728280)
                [Hit Submit instead of preview - here's the final version]

                You are right about 2.4 GHz devices interfering with each other. That's about it.

                First: Wi-Fi devices may be assigned "static channels", but these are not minimally wide frequency bands as you imply. In fact, the channels are 30Mhz wide and contain spread spectrum signals. Channel 1 overlaps channels 2 through 5 enough to cause interference.

                Second: Digital modulation techniques need not "bleed over" significantly past the bandwidth required to carry the information (i.e. potentially less than analog transmission of the same information). For example, psk31 is a digital mode with a bandwidth of about 31Hz.

                Third: Modulated signals are necessarily not sine waves. Especially signals designed to look like noise (n.b. Wi-Fi is meant to look like noise across 30MHz of spectrum). You will see changes in frequency or phase (I'm not certain which). If individual cycles of the 2.4GHz waveform you saw looked rough then you made a mistake sampling the signal. Visible distortion of a single wave so far out of bad it would not affect any 2.4GHz devices.

                BTW, my license says "Extra".

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by evanbd (210358)

          I'm not saying that there isn't a problem. The article reads more like an advertisement in spots, but they do give a modest amount of technical info -- enough that I'm willing to believe the problem is real. It appears that the spread-spectrum controller is interfering with the WiFi signal. That's not overly surprising, but it has absolutely *nothing* to do with the fact that the data is digital. It has everything to do with the fact that these two devices are using each other's bandwidth and not handli

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Achromatic1978 (916097)
            Anecdotally, I have my doubts. I have a pretty complex network - the office upstairs (with 4 LAN devices, including a Polycom phone) is connected via a wireless bridge between upstairs and downstairs with two Linksys routers. Where does my router downstairs sit? Right on top of my XBox 360. I VPN without a hiccup, use the phone without a hiccup, and stream music, whilst my partner and her friends have played games downstairs on the 360 for hours and not once have I ever seen the network hiccup as a result.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by evanbd (210358)
              If there is one thing I have learned about dealing with radio interference and electrical noise in general, it's that it is unpredictable and depends on far stranger details than you would think. That you don't have trouble surprises me even less than that some people do. If it were exceedingly common I'd be surprised -- I imagine MS tested at least a handful of simple, obvious cases. Of course, we don't have proof that the XBOX is at fault, but I wouldn't be surprised either way. Whether it's reasonabl

    • Re:Microsoft and Radio? Help us all.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by phantomcircuit (938963) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:09PM (#21726542) Homepage
      WiFi refreshes so often that most people dont notice the significant proformance drop

      their internet connection is almost always the real choke point anyways.
      • Perhaps you are privy to some ultra-sophisticated bleeding-edge wireless technology I was unaware of (in which case please share), but on most home networks I connect to the choke point is the way the bandwidth slowly atrophies and then I have to reconnect every five minutes or so.
        • Get an AP point with 802.1n or download firmware that allows you to use channels 12-13-14 of the 2.4ghz spectrum. I have been using channel 14 for 3 years with virtually no disconnects.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Shakrai (717556) *

            I have been using channel 14 for 3 years with virtually no disconnects

            Minor detail that you can't legally use that channel in the United States (or Canada?). Granted, the odds of getting caught are next to nothing, but I don't think this is a viable "fix" for anybody in the business world.....

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Shakrai (717556) *

          the choke point is the way the bandwidth slowly atrophies and then I have to reconnect every five minutes or so

          Try locking your access point to 802.11b-only mode and see what that does.

          I've noticed the exact same problem you describe with a lot of 802.11g chipsets (Intel Pro/Wireless being the worst offender in my experience). Watching the devices they seem to switch speed rates constantly up and down for no obvious reason. Every single time a rate change happens the network communications stop for at least a few seconds. Eventually they just stop communicating altogether until the client is reset.

          Once locke

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Ephemeriis (315124)

        WiFi refreshes so often that most people dont notice the significant proformance drop

        their internet connection is almost always the real choke point anyways.

        I guess it really depends on what you're trying to do with your WLAN. Sure, if you're just using it to surf porn at home then I guess it doesn't matter much... But I support a few medical offices and I cringe every time someone mentions wireless. It's hard to get a good signal, it's even harder to keep a solid connection throughout the day. When you

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by nschubach (922175)

          I even bought a signal-boosting router, but it still only works reliably within 20 feet of it
          Ugh, it's like playing your radio louder so you can't hear other people's music. What happens when they buy a louder radio? Are you prepared to microwave yourself so you have a good internet connection?
    • It's not "badly managed", it isn't managed at all. It's an unlicensed block.
    • "And you can't fix it either!

      Gee, and here Apple has moved on w/5.8GHz for 802.11n :)

    • Re:Microsoft and Radio? Help us all.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by purpledinoz (573045) on Monday December 17 2007, @12:33PM (#21726942)
      This is why I hate everything that's wireless. Devices interfere with each other, they have to be recharged all the time, and it's slow! I propose a revolution, a revolution where devices don't interfere with each other, they don't need to be recharged, and is fast! I propose the use of thin threads of copper for signal transmission and power supply. In fact, I am inventing the next BlackBerry killer. Imagine a phone which never drops a signal, never requires charging, and can transfer data at 1gbps. That's right, a phone that's wired! Now, I just need to make sure NTP doesn't sue the crap out of me for wired e-mail.

      • Re:Microsoft and Radio? Help us all.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Shakrai (717556) * on Monday December 17 2007, @01:22PM (#21727746) Journal

        This is why I hate everything that's wireless

        Wouldn't it have been better to say "I hate everything that's unlicensed wireless"?

        Devices interfere with each other

        I've never had an interference issue with a cell phone. Of course my cell phone is using a licensed band......

        they don't need to be recharged

        This is the single reason why I've never bought a bluetooth headset. Yet another device to charge. Somebody needs to give me a rational explanation for why mini-usb hasn't become the charging standard across the industry. Motorola is using it for all of their stuff (phones and headsets). Why is nobody else? Yes, I mean you Nokia.....

      • Re:Microsoft and Radio? Help us all.... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Shakrai (717556) * on Monday December 17 2007, @01:30PM (#21727858) Journal

        Devices that use spread spectrum do not cause interference

        "Devices that use spread spectrum do not cause interference with each other"

        There, fixed that for you.

        Seriously, anybody that has ever tried to use an analog 2.4Ghz cordless phone near a busy wi-fi network knows that they do cause interference. Hell, I can even tell when my wi-fi has a burst of activity if I'm using my bluetooth headset.... and bluetooth is supposed to avoid channels that are in use.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Shakrai (717556) *

            I didn't say that the signal wasn't detectable only that it didn't (at least shouldn't) cause interference that made another RF device inoperable

            An idle wi-fi network doesn't make the cordless phone inoperable (though hearing the clicks every time the wi-fi network beacons is annoying), but a network running some decent traffic load will render the phone next to useless.

            but such as the life of using an FCC part 15 device in the ISM band...

            Indeed. I'd like to see the FCC open up more unlicensed bands but limit each band to a certain type of device -- i.e: this band for DSSS devices, this band for FHSS devices, etc, etc. Most of the interference with 2.4Ghz seems to be related to devices that use different type

    • Really? You don't have Halo 3 or any other games for the 360 which were published by MS? :p

      Nit picky, perhaps.

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