A TP-Link TD-W9970 router protects your home network by blocking unwanted incoming internet connections and acting as a basic firewall. Sometimes you need to open a port in your router in order to get a good connection for a game or to use a specific device on your network. The TD-W9970 lets you choose the applications that are allowed to connect through an open port. By opening a port in your router you allow a specific application or game to send data from the internet to your home network.
Follow these steps to open a port in your TP-Link TD-W9970 router:
- Go ahead and set up a static IP address on the computer or device that you are forwarding these ports to.
- Log in to your TP-Link TD-W9970 router.
- Make your way to the Virtual Server section of the TP-Link TD-W9970 router.
- Find the Forwarding tab at the left of the screen and click on it.
- Click on the link called Virtual Server.
- Go ahead and create a Virtual Server entry.
If the process of forwarding ports in your router seems difficult to you, you are not alone! Do not get discouraged. Let us walk you through the steps for opening a port in the TP-Link TD-W9970 router. Just follow along as we lead you through the process of opening a port in your router.
We think that forwarding a port should be easy. That's why we created Network Utilities. Our software does everything that you need to forward a port.
When you use Network Utilities you get your port forwarded right now!
Step 1 - Setup A Static IP Address
It is important to set up a static IP address in the device that you are forwarding a port to. This ensures that your ports remain forwarded even after a reboot, power outage, or another type of device or router disconnect.
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Recommended - Our free program will setup a static IP address for you.
â Download Network Utilities today!
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Or follow our Static IP Address guides to setup a static IP address.
After setting up a static ip address on your devices you need to login to your router.
Step 2 - Login To Your TP-Link Router
Log in to your TP-Link TD-W9970 router. To log in you will need to use a web browser since the TP-Link TD-W9970 uses a web interface to access router configurations.
Open up whichever internet browser that you are comfortable with. If you are not sure which one to use, then go ahead and open Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.
To help with confusion, we have simplified this step for you with this link: Login to your TD-W9970 Router
Once you have opened a web browser, find the address bar which is usually located at the top of the screen. The image below shows an example of this.
Above is an example of what a web browser address bar looks like. Find the address bar in your web browser and type in your router's IP address.
The default IP address for the TP-Link TD-W9970 router is: 192.168.1.1
Once you have entered your router's IP address in the address bar go ahead and click the enter button on your keyboard. You should see a box like the one shown below.
Go ahead and enter the username and password for the TP-Link TD-W9970 router in the spaces available. Remember if you have changed them in the past, you need to enter those values.
- The default TP-Link TD-W9970 Router Username is: admin
- The default TP-Link TD-W9970 Router Password is: admin
Enter your username and password, and then click the Login button to log in to your TP-Link TD-W9970 router.
TP-Link Usernames and Passwords
If the username and password did not work I recommend checking out our Default TP-Link Router Passwords page.
If, after trying the above list of passwords you still can't login you may need to consider a reset for your router. Learn how to do that by reading our How to Reset a Router guide. After resetting the TP-Link TD-W9970 router your username and password are reverted back to factory defaults.
Step 3 - Find The Port Forwarding Section
You should be on the home page of your TP-Link TD-W9970 router once you have successfully logged in. Find the Virtual Server section of your router.
- Find the Forwarding tab at the left of the screen and click on it.
- Click on the link that says Virtual Server.
You are now on the Virtual Server page.
Step 4 - Create A Port Forward Entry
Forwarding ports in your router creates a path that allows data to get through your network firewall, and this could lead to malicious traffic on your network. So make sure that you must forward a port before actually doing so. However, the risk is very low, so do not let this warning stop you from making this change if you need to.
Here are the ports to forward for Xbox Live:
- TCP Ports: 3074
- UDP Ports: 3074
If you are looking for the ports for a different application you can find it by either:
- Browsing our List of Games
- Check out our our List of Games by Genre
- See our List of all Applications
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- Click on the button called Add New.
- The Service Port box accepts either a single number or a range of numbers. If you are forwarding a single port number, then enter that port number into the Service Port box. If you are forwarding a range of ports such as 1000-2000, then you can enter the lowest number of that range into the Service Port box, followed by a hyphen, followed by the largest number.
- Find the IP Address box and enter the IP address that you want ports forwarded to. This can be either the IP address of your computer or any other IP address for devices on your network that you want to forward ports for.
- Leave Internal Port blank.
- In the Protocol dropdown box, select the protocol type of the ports you are forwarding. Choose Both if your router has that option. Otherwise, choose either TCP or UDP as needed. If you need to forward a port for both TCP and UDP and your router does not have the Both option, then you need to create two entries.
- Make the Enabled selection in the Status drop-down list.
- When you are completely finished, click the Save button at the bottom of the page to apply these changes.
Test If Your Ports Are Open
Finally, I strongly recommend testing to see if you forwarded the TP-Link TD-W9970 ports correctly. To do this you can use our Network Utilities tool, which includes a free Open Port Checker. Open Port Checker is the only online port checking tool that has Guaranteed Results.
More Guides To Check Out:
- We have software that does all of this and more called Network Utilities.
- Learn how to Setup your router.
- A full list of games and applications that require port forwarding.
