[howyalikdemapls]

I've had my softmodded Xbox with XBMC linked up to my computer for quite a while now, and I forgot how I initially set it up. I've been reading through many threads but none of them seem to be helping me. My xbox has a cat5 cable running directly into a hub which is hard wired to both my laptop and my wireless router (using a 150ft cable) on the other end of the house. Hooked up to my laptop are 2 external hard drives with all my media in shared folders. I have these folders linked up to my xbox and everything will play, except that my buffer runs out every several minutes. It didn't used to do this as much, but it has always been somewhat of a problem. I thought with my laptop and xbox being linked with a "fast ethernet switch" (aka hub) my problems would go away, but if I unplug the cable that goes to the router, nothing works at all. People have said that my router is giving my xbox somesort of identification. I have tried simply making the cache larger in xbmc's settings but that doesn't solve my problems. (other people have suggested that having a large cache bogs down xbmc with too much data processing). Can anyone tell me how to link my xbox directly to my laptop so I can use these external hard drives without having to use the router? I believe it is the router that is causing the buffer underrun. Any help will be appreciated!

(I know many times people get yelled at for posting in the wrong area. I'm new to these forums and I'm not trying to break any rules. I've just been dealing with this headache for several months now and reading previous threads doesn't seem to be helping much, so please be nice. Thank you!)