Wired's How-To Wiki details step-by-step how to set up port forwarding to make sure you're getting the best experience from your Xbox 360 and Xbox Live game play. Depending on your router you may never have needed to do this, but if you've ever experienced long wait-times between games and other suspicious network problems, there's a fair chance that a quick trip through your router's settings could make a big difference. While you're at it, you may be interested in tweaking your router to ensure your Xbox gets the lion's share of your bandwidth when you need it. Finally, now that you're gaming is set up for top performance, maybe it's time you do more than just game on your 360.

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Millions of homes have an Xbox 360 sitting in the living room, but if you're only using your 360 to game, you're missing out. With some free tools and a little elbow grease, that compact, networked PC sitting under your television can offer a whole lot of useful media functionality. The fact is, your 360 is capable of so much more than just gaming. Let's take a look at a few ways you can get more from your Xbox 360. (We covered some of this territory in our recent guide to what to do with your new cheap Xbox 360, but there's plenty of extra goodness to be had.

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As both Nick at Gizmodo and Logan at Kotaku reported this morning, Microsoft has dropped the Australian price of the Xbox 360, making the cheapest model $349. Those price cuts might well tempt you to add the Xbox 360 to your technology arsenal, but remember that the machine isn't just a console and media player. Check after the jump for five mods you can make to your new discounted Xbox to render it more useful and more efficient.

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Windows Vista only: Freeware Vista Media Centre plug-in vmcNetFlix streams Netflix Watch Now videos to Windows Media Centre extenders, including the Xbox 360. You can also manage your queue, browse movies, and do just about anything else you'd want from a Netflix plug-in. Previously mentioned MyNetflix incorporated all of these features, but so far it does not support streaming to extenders. If you've been tempted by the new Netflix streaming box but don't want to throw down cash when you've already got a 360 in your home theatre, vmcNetFlix is a sure winner. It's in beta and still a touch buggy, but it's very promising. Hit the jump to check out a video of vmcNetFlix in action.

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More devices in your living room have Ethernet ports than ever before, but you can't plug them into the network if your router's in the other room. When your Wi-Fi access point is in the home office but your TiVo, Xbox, and media centre are screaming for network love under your TV in the living room, you want a wireless bridge (also known as an Ethernet converter). A wireless bridge catches your home network's Wi-Fi signal and provides ports where you can plug in wired devices near it. Let's take a look at how to wire up your living room using a wireless bridge.

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We've shown you how to stream DivX/XviD video to your Xbox 360, but here's a hack for dealing with a much simpler problem - the 360's noisy fan. ExtremeTech likens the sound of the Xbox 360 fan to that of a Cessna revving for takeoff, and gives a walkthrough for replacing the fan with a quieter one. The article does note that opening the console does void the warranty, and also that you'll still get noise from the DVD-ROM. However you should have a quieter time when playing Xbox Live Arcade games or watching downloaded or streamed movies or music, since they don't trigger the optical drive.
You can buy a fan which is customised for the Xbox 360's fan mount - for this exercise they use a green Whisper Fan. If you're DIY minded and have the proper tools, you can unlock and open the console case yourself, but Extreme Tech says they opted for a Team Xecuter 360 Unlock V2 kit which cost $12.
The article goes on to give a full walkthrough with pictures, and sums up by saying the new fan is "startlingly" quiet. It's up to you to decide if the risk of voiding the warranty is worth it for quieter performance.

Hacking your Xbox 360 fan [ExtremeTech]