Whats the easiest way to connect to xbox live?

How come my xbox cant connect to xbox live?

• So i have two xbox's. My old white one from a few years ago got red rings and now it only stays on for two hours until it goes off. Then i got an elite (the black xbox) and it works fine. My elite connected to live perfectly until a couple days ago. I use a wired connection. The elite always has trouble connecting. It takes me like an hour until it connects by playing around with the wires and stuff. But then when i tried connecting to xbox live with the white xbox, it works fine. I would use that one but like i said it gets red rings with in two hours. So what im thinking is that the xbox 360 elite has some kind of trouble connecting because something wrong is going in the xbox. It is not my ethernet cable because it works fine on the white xbox. I even called xbox and that didnt help. So do i need a new xbox or is there way to make the elite connect without any problems.

• Answer:

  Assign it a static IP address by doing a manual network setup. Then, set up a DMZ for that IP address in your router. That's where I would start.