Is it possible for a mac address to be too old for networking equipment to use or access?

Question

My brother just moved into his college dorm and his roommate has a one year old xbox 360. They tryed to hook it up to the college's network to play xbox live and it did not work. someone, probably from the college's it staff, told them that the xbox's mac address was too old to work with their system. Is this possible? What can they do to make it work? HELP!

Answer 1

The Media Access Control hardware address is universal standard and each is unique except on some cheap knock-off network cards where the manufacturer has not bothered to properly make each network card unique - so all properly manufactured networkable devices with MAC addresses have unique and standardized MAC addresses.  There is no such thing as the MAC address being too old.

The hub could be helpful if it were needed but if you do not need to connect additional devices, no do not use it.  Each additional device adds complexity and what is called an additional hop.  It will not resolve the problem, unless what you have is a failure to connect because some hubs provide a switch then provides the effect of a cross-over cable to that listening and talking connections occur rather than talking to talking and listening to listening, which like with two people only talking does not work, so make the explanation very simple.

Answer 2

Although I don't know how to fix this, I would suggest your college's network isn't allowing you to connect to it.

It is impossible for a mac address to be "too old."

Answer 3

They didn't tell him that to fix the problem he has to turn widdershins 3 times under a new moon?  Their answer makes just as much sense.  Classify it not only under "lie of the day", but "most stupid statement of the year".  If we knew the exact error message we might be able to help more.  (The hub won't do a thing.)

Answer 4

No. I've used 10+yr old Mac's on wired networks before without a problem. Your problem is that the network is most likely running as a VPN that requires an authenticated login.

The solution to this problem would be to setup a router inside the dorm room that will bridge an open network in his room with the VPN that the school probably uses.