bluetooth

[peterb5013]

i have an ibm thinkpad z60m which i have had for over 3 years lately when trying to bluetooth pictures from my thinkpad to my phone, this could not be done. i have noticed that in the system tray the bluetooth icon is coloured red instead of white but i do not know how this has happened. it appears that the bluetooth is switched off but i cannot seem to be able to switch it back on . please can you help me.

[andyP Community SuperMod]

peterb5013, welcome to the forum,

have you turned bluetooth on using the Fn+F5 key combination?

[peterb5013]

have tried that but only shows location profile and wireless networks. nothing there for bluetooth . have also noticed that the little bluetooth light beside battery symbols etc is not lit up

[andyP Community SuperMod]

Could you post the Type and Model Number please, this will help members identify your system and hopefully help you. If it ends in CTO please provide some details about the ThinkPad. Please do NOT post your s/n.

Have you updated the drivers, or tried any other methods to solve the problem?

[peterb5013]

type and model number is 2531 - A41 . the bluetooth used to work ok but dont know why it has suddenly stopped.

[Hgovan]

That is my situation on a x60s thats 3 years old.. just started in the last 6 months but hard to tell when as hadnt used bluetooth for a while. Could Lenovo please look into this as i think the volunteers have offered as much support as they are able eg installing uninstalling etc

[luthersloan]

My Z60m is doing the same thing. For a while I thought I might have accidentally messed up Com-port-enumeration. Trying to fix it by several means has been unsuccessful, so in the end I ended up resetting the complete system. In the beginning (prior Windows Updates and Think Vantage System Updates) the Bluetooth device still could not be found and no drivers/software pertaining to BT werde installed.

After all System Updates suddenly the Fn+F5-GUI offered to switch on BT and subsequently the "New Hardware found"-routine started. I opted to interrupt it and install the BT drivers from the lenovo homepage manually. A few minutes later, I wanted to finally start a BT connection but without a discernible reason, the device was gone again. There is no trace whatsoever in the whole system that any BT device is there.

I'll try to sum up the situation:

System:

Thinkpad Z60m

2529-FKG

Windows XP SP 3

downloaded and installed driver file: 7vba16ww.exe

Symptoms:

WIDCOMM BT-Tray shows red/blue icon

Control panel option says "BT-device can not be found"

Fn+F5 does not show BT-option anymore

What I already tried:

deinstalling and reinstalling drivers

deinstalling drivers, rebooting after deactivating device in BIOS and reinstalling drivers after re-activation in BIOS

installing MS BT-drivers

May it just be a component fatigue issue?

[luthersloan]

Following the Lenovo "how to disassemble ..." guide, I found out that it was unnecessary to remove all the stuff underneath the keyboard, because it is possible to get access to the BT-device by simply removing the LCD front bezel.

However, all connections seemed to be intact. Beforehand, I tried another hardware troubelshooting method. I booted on Linux (Knoppix) and tried "lsusb". No BT-USB-device was found ...

Now I'm unsure about how to proceed. It looks to me like BT device failure. On the other hand isn't it odd that you guys experience the exact same thing with the first occurence being six months ago? Hard to believe!

EDIT: Typo

[Hgovan]

I agree it is hard to believe. I plugged in an external BT and it loaded all drivers automatically and worked fine. So i guess that is probably confirming that these things are dying around the 3-4 year mark?  I see on ebay etc lots of adverts for cheap replacements so it is probably more worth my while to try one at 10 dollars than to go without my laptop for a few says at the workshop with no guaranteed outcome..

[Hgovan]

Update to this. I got my hands on a replacement internal bluetooth device and installed it behind the LCD bezel. Still have to run through all the rigmarole of last time but so far absolutely no sign of a device being recognized or any changes.  No way of telling if the replacement works but would seem to suggest that this is not the problem. Now my warranty has finally expired i guess i better get used to the thing rapidly falling apart around me...