I cannot play internet games. At first when i tried it just would not connect but when I downloaded a program for playing internet games (hoping it would work) it told me what was wrong: My external IP is different from my internal IP. Here is the message it says: Proxy or Firewall Detected. GameSpy Arcade has detected that your computer's internal IP address <My internal IP> is different than its external IP address <My external IP>. This may be caused by firewalls, a NAT proxies, or other unusual network configurations and may prevent you from hosting a game. Please see our Firewall Guide for further information. You can access it by choosing "Help with GameSpy Arcade" from the Help menu I have not included my IP addresses because i have detirmined that it would be unwise. My step dad says that it is the router and since he knows so much about computers I trust his judgement but he doesn't know how to fix this. Is there a way? If so how do you do it?

You need to forward control over a port from the router to the computer, so that the game can communicate with the gameserver. Most big games have a specific portnumber that they use for their multiplayer games, so you'll need to find out (Google) which port you need to open. Check whether you find your router's model in the list at this site: portforward.com If it's there, then you'll find a guide on how to forward the port. ___________________________________________ ☺ [Belgium, GMT+1]_________________________svg

hi, you failed to say what kind of router you have.some routers have a gaming mode in them.you can access it through your IE browser and typing in the ip addy of the router.see if you have a gaming mode. keltik

Unfortunately there isn't any magic cure all. The problem is the router. To play internet games, the host machine and client machines need to communicate. They do this using one or several ports. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 65,000 ports. Each game uses whatever ports the game developer (or the game engine) assigned to the game. When you browse the internet, your computer makes a request to a web page on port 80. The router see this request going out and when the data for the web page comes back, the router knows to route the information back to your computer. But, when an unsolicited packet comes in that was not requested, then the router drops the packet because it doesn't know where to send it. Basically you have to find out the ports that are used by a specific game and then configure the router to forward those ports to the machine that is hosting the game. Michael J

Thanks for the help so far but i have no idea what my router model is. any help on that?

hi, check underneath the router.should have a sticker with name and model number. do you know how to access the router by typing in the ip address of it??it will have more info in there. keltik

Open a CommandPrompt by typing cmd into the Start>Run box. Then type ipconfig into the CommandPrompt window. You'll then get a small list with: -- ip address = the private IP of your computer (this is the IP that you'll have to forward that port to later on) -- subnet mask = not important -- default gateway = the IP next to this, is your router's private IP. Type that into the addressbar of your webbrowser, and you will probably access the configuration webpages built-into your router. Those webpages will most likely show you the model of your router. ___________________________________________ ☺ [Belgium, GMT+1]_________________________svg