Thinkpads Forum

Yep it's me again with another problem..

While considering using the spare PCIe slot for a USB mouse dongle, I suddenly remembered I had Bluetooth so I did a quick check with my phone to connect to the T61 only to find nothing happened.

So I started another marathon trawl through google to find an answer and keep coming up blank. I can see Bluetooth enabled in the bios but Windows 7 simply can't see it. I tried to reinstall the BT driver only to be told I had no such device. I then found that Fn/F5 key does nothing and went through another load of rigmarole installing and uninstalling various versions of Hot Key drivers in various orders, but nothing seems to work. I do have the front wireless switch switched on so I know it's not ran out of petrol or got a flat battery

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I just hope it does not entail a fresh Win 7 install as I had to activate by phone last time and they might not let me do it again.

Incidentally I do have a driver listed in Add/Remove programs called: Windows Driver Package - Broadcom (BTHUSB) Bluetooth (04/08/2010 6.3.5.430) which is 3rd from the bottom of the list of installed programs. I can't remember now if it was a Windows update or a Lenovo driver package. I usually run Windows update before anything else when installing a new OS.

To make sure I had no hardware problems I did a factory restore on a spare hdd, it took a lifetime to complete. Everything works perfectly, Fn+F5, onscreen display, bluetooth in device manager, just like it did when it was new I guess.

I'm assuming this is some kind Windows 7 64bit compatibility problem which I need to figure out. It's kind of strange that I have a BT driver installed but no sign of it in device manager and any newer driver reports no BT hardware installed.

EDIT: ok now things have got really weird.. After turning BT on in Win XP, a bunch of drivers installed themselves and I connecting with my phone and all was well. I shutdown the laptop, pulled the hard drive, inserted my Win 7 hard drive and booted in anticipation of some serious problem solving. When Win 7 started, a bunch of drivers started installing, I clicked the info bubble and 4 various BT drivers had installed. To my dismay, BT is now in device manager and 'My Bt places' is working and a new BT shortcut has appeared in the start menu. The F5 key and onscreen display is still not working but there again I have no hotkey driver installed as after every last failure I uninstalled everything. Totally bizarre!

So some real fuzzy logic for this problem: Get BT working on one hdd with Win XP, then plug in a completely different hdd with Win 7 with no sign of BT anywhere and then it magically appears