[coder12]

So I bought a bluetooth module from ebay, I received it, plugged it in, and powered on my mini 10v with full smiles hoping it would work. At this point I had my bluetooth power turned off in bios.
I then shut down my 10v, booted into bios, and enabled bluetooth. I also made sure USB legacy mode was disabled. Exit >> Save Changes >> Boot into OS X.
Nothing appeared however. No bluetooth in the menubar, no bluetooth in the system preferences, no bluetooth in the system profiler, no bluetooth ... anywhere!
I figured this problem may have simply been due to the OS I was in, so I booted into windows 7. I went into devmgmt.msc and checked for bluetooth devices. Nothing. I hit the f2 "wireless" key: nothing.

I contacted the seller on ebay, who then sent 2 new cables in the mail. I turned off bluetooth in the bios, and swapped cables.

At this point I'd like to point out the types of cables that were shipped:
1. The original cable I received was dully colored. All of the pins had a cable.

The two cables that were shipped later were colored as so:
2. Another dull cable, it appears that the cable is the same as my original.
3. The 3rd cable was vividly coloured. All of the pins on it were the same as the other two cables.

The 2 dull cables had no effect on anything.

Finally I tried the colourful cable, I booted into bios and made sure bluetooth was on. The power was on, and I smelled something burning... HOLY AITCH PRIME the bt module was burning hot! I unplugged the module immediately. After letting everything cool down, I booted into the OS.

The one thing I noticed by doing this was that the Bluetooth power was turned off as soon as I selected what OS to boot in Chameleon.


Does anyone have any advice? Am I missing something here? I'd really like for this to work!

[rrfranczak3]

well, 1st thing is that there are Dell Drivers required for the BT that need to be installed, are they?, I am only talking about Windows....not OSX, I know nothing about OSX and dont want to either...I hate Apple....but anyway..make sure that you have the drivers installed and also the BT application for the bt/wi-fi radio

PS. I am confused...you sig says Win XP SP3, your post says Win 7...which is it.???

[coder12]

Originally Posted by rrfranczak3

well, 1st thing is that there are Dell Drivers required for the BT that need to be installed, are they?, I am only talking about Windows....not OSX, I know nothing about OSX and dont want to either...I hate Apple....but anyway..make sure that you have the drivers installed and also the BT application for the bt/wi-fi radio

PS. I am confused...you sig says Win XP SP3, your post says Win 7...which is it.???

I've tried to install the drivers for the module, it says that no module is detected.

What is the "Application for the bt/wifi radio"? If it's something that powers on the detection for the bluetooth module then it's probably worth a shot. {Goes to check the Dell drivers website...}

Sorry about the confusion about the OS, I've corrected my signature... oddly enough, I've never even used windows XP on this machine aside from its purchase ... So I'm not sure why I did that!

[rrfranczak3]

bluetooth driver:
Drivers and Downloads

wireless enable/disable:
Drivers and Downloads

[coder12]

Originally Posted by rrfranczak3

bluetooth driver:
Drivers and Downloads

wireless enable/disable:
Drivers and Downloads

I was afraid those would be the ones...

Upon installing the driver >> "No module found!"

Upon installing the enabler/disabler I only get the option to turn wifi on and off.

Any other ideas? I'm considering biting the bullet on this one to buy a new module..

[jmacie]

I use a mini bluetooth dongle. It's an iogear. I'd suggest trying a dongle to see how the OSs react to it. It seems to me that win7 should have recognized it even if it didn't have drivers. I think you probably have a bad module, little cable or connection. It seems to me that way back someone said they bought a bluetooth module and requested a new little cable and that fixed it. I think that person got their module on ebay from a company in Texas.

[coder12]

Originally Posted by jmacie

I use a mini bluetooth dongle. It's an iogear. I'd suggest trying a dongle to see how the OSs react to it. It seems to me that win7 should have recognized it even if it didn't have drivers. I think you probably have a bad module, little cable or connection. It seems to me that way back someone said they bought a bluetooth module and requested a new little cable and that fixed it. I think that person got their module on ebay from a company in Texas.

I'd try the dongle but I'd like to see if I can get this to work at all first; it was my understanding as well that something should have appeared in devmgmt. I've tried 3 cables, and one of them caused extreme heat.

Not to be driven mad, I pull out my MC-1015B Voltometer and did some tests:

All 3 of the cables work, power is driven through them in the bios, but when Chameleon pops up, all power is lost.

So, I could try a reinstall without chameleon to see if that helps any.. But that requires ... another HD! (Goes to pull HD out of his old macbook)

Or alternatively: Is there something I can modify to make chameleon keep BT power on?

[jmacie]

I'd search here for people that have gotten bluetooth modules. I KNOW they are here. Try messaging them to see if they have any insight. I remember several threads on people buying and installing these modules and their successes and failures.
I was suggesting a dongle just to see if bluetooth will work, then just return it.

[coder12]

Originally Posted by jmacie

I'd search here for people that have gotten bluetooth modules. I KNOW they are here. Try messaging them to see if they have any insight. I remember several threads on people buying and installing these modules and their successes and failures.
I was suggesting a dongle just to see if bluetooth will work, then just return it.

thanks for the help. I installed a clean copy of winxp on a seperate HD, and no bt device was detected at all... At this point it's most likely a bad card. BT dongles work fine, but I don't like one of my ports being consumed ... call it OCD but it drives me nuts!

[coder12]

I got a refund today... I might pry open the module to see if there is something simple I can do to repair it. I'm pretty good with soldering. Otherwise, I'll buy a new module to see how it works.