T60 Bluetooth Finally Functional!- A Tutorial

[gtphill]

In an attempt to give back in a small way to the forums that have helped me out, here is yet another way to get Bluetooth working on a T60 widescreen:

I have a T60 (Type 8743-CTO) with WinXP Pro SP3. From the day I purchased it the Bluetooth has not functioned properly. Either the machine did not see any Bluetooth devices, or the "My Bluetooth Places" would hang explorer up so badly that I would restart the machine.

I have always had problems with drivers/firmware from ATI and Linksys, but this completely non-functional Broadcom business has to take the (steaming turd) cake for unusable drivers and/or

But now, having purchased a new Sony Ericsson (SE) TM506 3G enabled phone, and dutifully following the HowardForums instructions for "debranding" and tethering, suddenly the idea of 3G phone tethering over Bluetooth has a lot of appeal to me.

After googling and reading a bunch of things online, this is how I was able to get my internal Broadcom Bluetooth (BT) to function properly:

1. Turn off the BT using Fn +F5

2. Uninstalling the "ThinkPad Bluetooth with Enhanced Data Rate" via Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel

3. Removing the BT hardware from the Device Manager in control panel

4. Follow Microsoft Knowledge Base 889814: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889814

5. After completing #4 restart my computer

6. After restart turn on BT via Fn +F5

7. Cancel out the drivers installation wizard

8. Go back to C:\Windows\Inf and rename Bth.inf.old and Bth.pnf.old back to their original names.

9. Restart computer again.

10. Run driver installation wizard, and allow Microsoft wizard to search online

11. Accept drivers that Microsoft chooses for the BT hardware, completely ignoring the Lenovo supplied drivers.

12. Restart computer again.

13. Pair and configure phone under "Control Panel" >> "Bluetooth Devices"

14. Celebrate and vow to never use another Lenovo supplied BT driver update again!

FWIW, "Control Panel" >> "System" >> "Hardware" >> "Device Manager" shows the BT drivers as follows:

Microsoft Bluetooth Enumerator--Driver Version: 5.1.2600.5512 (04/13/2008)
Thinkpad Bluetooth with Enhanced Data Rate--Driver Version: 5.1.2535.0 (10/24/2006)

This combination successfully allows use of Bluetooth serial connection with the SE sync software, and Bluetooth 3G tethering through a Bluetooth access point connection. The latter works wholly form within windows, and does not require any SE software. So now USB or BT tethering works, and neither is dependent on running the SE sync software.

This also eliminates entirely from my Thinkpad the frustratingly non-working program from broadcom known as "My Bluetooth Places." Instead it is handled reliably inside XP using the "Connect To" link on the start menu.

Hooray!!

Hopefully this helps someone!

[dozer]

hi Phil, and thanks for your well-written 'guide' post.

I have a question though......

You said you completely eliminated the lenovo/broadcomm drivers, but near the end of your post you listed the installed drivers and one of them was in fact the regular lenovo 'tp bt w/enhanced data rate'.

?????

ps; I never had any trouble getting BT 'working' on my t60p/win2k, but I detest the lenovo/broadcomm BT stack. It's hard to imagine a more bloated, slow-to-connect, and configurability-limited application for a 'networking' device so low-end and simple.

Please let us know about the seeming contradiction regarding elimination of the lenovo/BC drivers.

thanks much,

Richard

ps; it would also be helpful to list the exact filenames that you got from MS, and a DL link for them (those of us without broadband generally prefer to avoid 'live updates' and queue up direct downloads for overnight DL)