Thinkpads Forum

I've just embarked on configuring a new T61 and have come across two utterly annoying problems that I was hoping someone might help me with.

1. Access Connections will not work. I can connect with no problem using windows to my access point but when I disable windows wireless networking and try to use Access Connections it just will not connect to the same access point, no matter what. For now I've given up and uninstalled AC. Any ideas?

2. T61 bluetooth will not see my bluetooth mouse. Ever. Period. It sees all my other bluetooth devices (phone, PDA) but it never finds the mouse that's 12" away just begging to be discovered. My T43 instantly sees the mouse and connects so I know there's nothing wrong with the mouse. Again, any ideas why bluetooth is only seeing some devices and not others?

I know it's not much to go on but I wanted to see if there is anything obvious I should check first.

My experience only goes up to T43 at this point. However, search for Access Connections and read up on it. It is a piece of networking software, it mucks with the registry (because that is where network settings are stored), it is married to the wireless card, and it tries to be automatic. You need to review the posts, check all your settings, and see if any of that helps. I have been using Access Connections for years - every version back to 2 point something and it always works for me. Some people, however, can never get it to work. ... JDH

Regarding your issue no. 1 try following:

1. Download and update to latest Wireless Drivers
2. Download and install latest Access Connections Software

And install in this order! Be sure to reenable (set to start automatically) the Windows Wireless Configuration Service since AC is dependent on this one.

Afterwards you should be able to connect to your desired AP with AC.

With issue no. 2 did you get any error message or any hint (maybe a look in Event Viewer would be helpful) when trying to pair the bluetooth devices?

I fixed Access Connections... uninstalled and reinstalled (which was a pain since System Update apparently cannot reinstall any Thinkpad apps for you). I then got it working by doing the following... connected to a wireless network using windows, kept that connection alive but unchecked the "let windows manage wireless connections etc" box, then connected to the same network using Access Connections. It works (for now). Before there was some conflict with windows and AC (surprise surprise).

Bluetooth is another issue... I'm still working on that one. Have uninstalled the Thinkpad bluetooth drivers and reinstalled only the MS drivers to no avail. It's weird... BT is just blind to my mouse but sees every other BT device I throw at it.

It might be helpful to post the make and model of the bluetooth mouse and what OS you are running.

Sorry... WinXP Pro and logitech V270 mouse (no dongle). All BT drivers are most recent.

Bluetooth devices are bound to their (one and only) host. If you paired the mouse previously with another computer (or even another OS install on the same computer), you have to break that pairing. Usually, there is a small button somewhere on the mouse that makes it again discoverable.

I think the problem was with the windows drivers. I uninstalled the windows BT drivers and tried only installing the Thinkpad BT driver package. That seemed to configure the BT slightly differently that the windows drivers alone did... looking in device manager, the BT card now shows up with a slightly different description.

Anyway, long story short, three reinstallations and reboots later, the mouse now works. I never will understand the weird conflicts with bluetooth drivers.

pipspeak wrote:I think the problem was with the windows drivers. I uninstalled the windows BT drivers and tried only installing the Thinkpad BT driver package. That seemed to configure the BT slightly differently that the windows drivers alone did... looking in device manager, the BT card now shows up with a slightly different description.

Anyway, long story short, three reinstallations and reboots later, the mouse now works. I never will understand the weird conflicts with bluetooth drivers.

I can ditto that. Never seemed to get my BT mouse and keyboard to work before i finally took the struglle and installed native IBM BT stack