Bluetooth disconnect problem

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AdrianPL · #1 Post by **AdrianPL** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 11:21 am

Hello again...
so here is the problem this time,
first it started with wifi disconnecting randomly, fixed it by disabling automatic wireless control in access connections so at least thats out of the way...
but bluetooth problem is still here.. tried everything possible but no luck. randomly mouse disconnects just to reconnect a sec later, thought maybe its the mouse, but when i tried to pair the phone w/ the laptop same thing happens, randomly it disconnects
any one had a similar problem and knows a fix for it ? thx
btw. mouse is logitech v270

frimp · #2 Post by **frimp** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 3:42 pm

AdrianPL wrote:randomly mouse disconnects just to reconnect a sec later, thought maybe its the mouse, but when i tried to pair the phone w/ the laptop same thing happens, randomly it disconnects
any one had a similar problem and knows a fix for it ? thx
btw. mouse is logitech v270

Hi, I just have the same problem. I have it with other BT devices (e.g. a Palm Tungsten T5) as well, so it´s a problem of the Thinkpad or the XP BT stack, not of the mouse.

I´m shortly before dumping this [censored] BT stuff...

AussieDan · #3 Post by **AussieDan** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:01 am

I've been experiencing similar problems with my z61m since I got it.

First I was using an old MS Explorer BT mouse, and it would disconnect randomly at varying intervals. I tried updating drivers, etc and couldn't get any improvement.

Thinking it may be the mouse, I purchased a Logitech MX5000 BT mouse/keyboard combo. The problems remain, both keyboard and mouse will disconnect at random intervals. Sometimes power cycling the mouse will help it reconnect, but not always (as I type this the mouse refuses to reconnect).

I did upgrade to the most recent drivers & widcomm stack, which seemed to help at first, but the problems seem to be as bad as ever now.

Currently I'm running:

BT Firmware: 2.1.92.108
BT Driver: 5.1.0.2100
Widcomm: 5.1.0.2100

ATH · #4 Post by **ATH** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 4:16 pm

May be it is a problem with power management. We have had similar problems with WLAN connections at different thinkpads.

Regards

Axel.

AussieDan · #5 Post by **AussieDan** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:22 pm

I'm not sure that power management would come into it, as I very rarely use it on battery power. Do you have any suggestions for debugging to rule this out?

ATH · #6 Post by **ATH** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:48 pm

You can test it:

- Change powermanagement to allways on
- Change WLAN mode to maximum performance

Axel.

AussieDan · #7 Post by **AussieDan** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 5:30 pm

Hmm,

I'm running a custom power profile:

Turn off monitor: 10 mins
Turn off hdd: 20 mins
Standby: never

Those are the 'plugged in' settings, the battery settings are:

5 mins
5 mins
10 mins

But like I said I almost never run it on the battery.

And I have both WLAN and WWAN disabled via the Fn+F5 utility.

RHicksted · #8 Post by **RHicksted** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 12:55 am

I have a Logitech V270 mouse. and it randomly disconnects. It was much worse until I updated the firmware to 2.1.92.108. I have not upgraded the software driver yet . I wonder if this is a hardware problem. When I monitor the WLAN signal strength is bounces randomly between 40% and 96 % and is usually at 96%. Could this be related?

AdrianPL · #9 Post by **AdrianPL** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 12:55 am

i would say YES
i got used to mine, sometimes it is a pain, never found a solution so incase u find something pls post it.....

duffian · #10 Post by **duffian** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 8:42 pm

I am having the same problem with my Z61M. I found out the part number for the bluetooth daughter card (it's 39T0497) and I ordered a new one from IBM ... it was something like $38 with shipping and handling it came to $50. I suspect it is not a driver issue because I have used both the windows and the Lenovo Widcomm driver and still get random disconnects. I will replace the BT card when I get the new one and see if that helps. More to come...

AussieDan · #11 Post by **AussieDan** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:46 am

It's good to hear that I'm not alone in this problem, but slightly disappointing considering how great everything else about the z61m is.

Ian, please let us know if replacing the daughterboard solves the problem, it would be great if it is such a simple hardware fix.

Update: I have posted a poll to try and get a more concrete idea of how many people are having issues with their bluetooth.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=38194

#12 Post by **GomJabbar** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:29 am

AussieDan wrote:I'm running a custom power profile <snip>

That is not where the power management settings for bluetooth would be. I do not have bluetooth, but I would check for these settings in the bluetooth software or adapter configuration settings. The page below is for WLAN, but it might give you some idea of what to look for, and where to look.

http://blog.st-agnes.org/cs/blogs/the_c ... nt/34.ashx

AussieDan · #13 Post by **AussieDan** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:05 am

Sadly neither of the bluetooth devices provide any kind of power management options, not even the 'allow the computer to turn off this device to save power' option.

AdrianPL · #14 Post by **AdrianPL** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 11:14 pm

thats right there is no management in XP, in vista you have something about letting the computer to turn off the device to save power,
windows vista has the same issue random disconnects, im wondering how the bt stack replacement goes so please keep us updated,

msg from one of the users of this forum about bt,

"No, no luck with my BT - I had Lenovo come out and replace the BT adapter, then I uninstalled all the software / drivers and reinstalled and I get the same thing."

my laptop was send in once for a fix, they updated bios drivers going to send it again and again till this issue is resolved, its nearly insane to work solidworks.... with bt mouse going on and off,

anyone knows if they have any lemon law policy on things like that ? Something similar to lemon cars,

duffian · #15 Post by **duffian** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:11 pm

...wouldn't you know it -- as soon as I order the BT daughter card and drop the $50, the BT now seems to be working fine (knock on wood). I haven't had a disconnect in several days now. I will hold out a bit longer and see what happens. No need to disassemble the laptop if it is working fine.

Also, I discovered that on the Z61m, the Bluetooth card is actually in the display. It's in the lower portion of the bezel, under the left hand side of the screen. It appears to be a major PITA to get at, so I won't do it unless absolutely necessary. Hmmph.

AussieDan · #16 Post by **AussieDan** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:42 pm

I haven't pulled my machine apart, but I was very surprised at the list of stuff you're supposed to remove in order to replace the BT card.

I would have thought that you could just disassemble the display housing, but the service manual seemed to suggest taking apart quite a lot of the actual laptop body.

If anyone has done the swap and can shed some light I'm sure it would be appreciated.

mstreger · #17 Post by **mstreger** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:19 am

I had the BT card replaced in my Z61m to try and fix the disconnect problem. It didn't work.

But, for those of you looking for the location, it is located under the bottom left of the screen bezel. The tech who replaced mine couldn't find it - he took apart the base under the keyboard and it was nowhere to be found, so he had to call for help.

Ultimately, it's actually pretty easy. The two black discs come off from the bottom left and right, those screws come out, and you can lift the bezel to get to the card. One screw holds it in place, one plug to connect it. It was a very quick job in the end, but it did nothing for my disconnect problem.

Matt

AussieDan · #18 Post by **AussieDan** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:41 am

Matt,

I'm sorry to hear that the fix isn't as simple as just replacing the card, I had hoped that maybe there might be a newer revision of the card available that didn't suffer from this annoying problem.

The reason I asked about the procedure is that the Hardware Maintenance Manual (page 109) states that the whole LCD assembly should be removed, which didn't make any sense to me either.

Anyway, the search for a solution goes on I suppose.

mstreger · #19 Post by **mstreger** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:47 am

Dan:

Thanks for the link to the manual - I'm going to keep THAT handy.

I can see where the "official" way to replace the BT card is to take apart the entire display, but it's not really necessary. I'm glad that I can help clear that part up.

And I too wished it was that easy. I'm certain it's the stack server, and I'm also certain that IBM/Lenovo is not putting any effort into updating XP drivers - they have everyone working on putting out (and fixing) Vista drivers. I bet we never see an update to the XP BT software.

AussieDan · #20 Post by **AussieDan** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:02 pm

I just opened a service call with IBM regarding this issue, and will keep this thread updated with any information received from IBM.

AdrianPL · #21 Post by **AdrianPL** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 8:26 am

......
that was the 2nd time i had to send my laptop back in for that repair, same comment on the repair sheet, BIOS updated

well yeah they did change the BIOS but instead of newer they downgraded to 2.04 :-\ one disconnect for 2 days, been running 2.14 before and had it disconnecting all the time,

AussieDan · #22 Post by **AussieDan** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 9:03 am

AdrianPL,

That is very strange, I'm trying to recall what the original BIOS revision was on my z61m. I do know that I've updated the bios a couple of times without any change in the behaviour, currently I'm running 2.12.

I do remember that I ran into the issue mentioned here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-65028

If the computer is forcibly shut down by special conditions (such like, pressing the power button for a few seconds or battery down in suspend mode), the computer may not work after power on.

Which was why I upgraded to 2.12, it was a very distressing moment when the machine refused to power up!

I spoke to IBM support yesterday and have to call my local service center today to arrange for a swap of the BT daughterboard.

duffian · #23 Post by **duffian** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:18 pm

Any chance that anyone having the problem with their bluetooth is running VMware? I had a strange disconnect incident today and then the bluetooth device showed up in VMWare. I thought that maybe the "problem" was that the virtual machine was contending for access to the device with the host and causing conflicts...

Any thoughts?

AussieDan · #24 Post by **AussieDan** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:22 pm

No VMware here, and I'm still trying to find someone local who can replace the daughterboard for me, as I can't afford to be without the laptop for a week.

sugo · #25 Post by **sugo** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 8:23 pm

Did anyone try using the Microsoft XP bluetooth stack instead of the Widcomm one? When I still had my MX900 and Apple bluetooth keyboard, they worked perfectly with XP stack.

I have tried various versions of Widcomm stack since v1.43. My conclusion was that Widcomm stack has never been, and may never will be, stable. Since then I gave up on bluetooth mouse and went back to RF. The logitech MX1000 has been rock solid here. It uses 27MHz frequently and doesn't interfere with WiFi or cell phone.

duffian · #26 Post by **duffian** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:14 am

So last night I finally got around to performing the laptop surgery to replace the BDC in my Z61m. First a little background information:

I recently got a copy of Vista Business through my school, so I (re)installed that over my old XP installation. I wiped out all of the information (including the Lenovo drivers) when I installed Vista.

After Vista was installed, most things seemed to work right after install. (no fingerprint reader, no camera, no SD card reader). However, bluetooth worked just fine.

Then I went to install the Lenovo drivers and nothing seemed to work. Bluetooth and wireless internet all stopped working. So I used system restore and rolled back to before I put the Lenovo drivers on. After system restore, things were working again.

However, I would still get random BT disconnects, especially during Vista's UAC notifications -- any time it would prompt me to "Cancel or Allow" a program to run, the BT would stop working.

Last night I finally gave up and swapped out the BDC with the new replacement one that I had ordered. The process is fairly simple -- remove three screws in the monitor bezel, remove the bezel, remove the BDC, install new BDC, replace bezel. Contrary to the instructions in the service guide, you do NOT have to remove the entire screen assembly or even get under the keyboard. You can leave everything attached and just remove the bezel.

After I restarted the computer after replacing the BDC, Vista's device manager showed a problem with my bluetooth radio. Uh-oh. So I did a power cycle of the bluetooth card using the Fn-F5 utility, which seemed to get rid of the problem. Then I flashed the BDC firmware to the latest version using IBM's utility. After all of this, I would still get the disconnects when the UAC notifications would pop up. Frustrating!

Then, I noticed that if you right-click on a device in Vista's device manager, there is an option to "Update Driver". For the device named "Thinkpad Bluetooth ... " I selected Update Driver, and Vista downloaded and installed a new device driver, which changed the device to "Broadcom Bluetooth somethingorother" (pardon my lousy memory, I am at work at 7am running on caffeine recounting something I did at 11pm last night). After doing Vista's driver update, the UAC / disconnect issue seems to have gone away (for now).

I will let you guys know if the problems re-emerge, but I am hoping that this may have fixed it. It seems to me like the issues may have been caused by a driver issue.

Anyhow, I'd better get to work. BTW, AdrianPL, I grew up in Crystal Lake IL. Went to CLS -- was a Gator, class of 94. Cheers!

AussieDan · #27 Post by **AussieDan** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:07 am

I did some more investigation this weekend and came up with a little information about the disconnect problems. Unfortunately I don't really know where I can go from here.

Firstly, I upgraded to the latest system bios (2.16) and BT firmware (2.1.211.299).

Second, I found a piece of software called BTServer Spy Lite bundled with the 5.1.0.2100 bluetooth driver from ibm, which allows you to monitor the activity of the bluetooth stack.

When the bluetooth disconnects, I see the following in the log:

Code: Select all

11:29:10.000 Device Stop
11:29:10.000 --BTKRNL: Bus state changed original:1 present:0 disabled:0 suspended:0
11:29:10.000 --BTKRNL: Turning bus off
11:29:10.000 BTKRNL_ResumeCompleted
11:29:10.359 Device Start
11:29:10.359 --BTKRNL: Bus state changed original:0 present:1 disabled:0 suspended:0
11:29:10.359 --BTKRNL: 1000000000000 device is not down yet, delaying bus on
11:29:10.359 --BTKRNL: 5 devices (including audio) are not down yet, delaying bus on
11:29:10.375 L2CAP - rcvd ACL for unknown handle:11 ls:0 cid:65 opcode:161 cur count:0

// message repeated

11:29:13.734 --BTKRNL: Bus state changed original:0 present:1 disabled:0 suspended:0
11:29:13.734 --BTKRNL: 1000000000000 device is not down yet, delaying bus on
11:29:13.734 --BTKRNL: 3 devices (including audio) are not down yet, delaying bus on

// message repeated

11:29:39.734 --BTKRNL: Bus state changed original:0 present:1 disabled:0 suspended:0
11:29:39.734 --BTKRNL: 1000000000000 device is not down yet, delaying bus on
11:29:39.734 --BTKRNL: 3 devices (including audio) are not down yet, but the timeout forces us to start...
11:29:39.734 --BTKRNL: Turning bus on

I wish I could find more information about what this means, but it seems like there is something causing the BT stack to shut down.

#28 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:33 pm

You might have some other hardware sharing an interupt (or possibly IO address) with the bluetooth drivers. Go into Windows Device Manager and disable any hardware you do not need, such as the Fast IR Port and ThinkPad Modem. Also unplug anything you have in the Cardbus slots (PC Card) or USB jacks. See if that fixes your disconnect problem. If it does, you can individually reenable the devices one by one, to find the culprit. I believe I have read that bluetooth sometimes interferes with some WWAN cards.

AussieDan · #29 Post by **AussieDan** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:40 pm

Thanks for the tip, I'll do some investigating.

Bob34 · #30 Post by **Bob34** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:39 pm

Anyone find a fix for this?

I get frequent disconnects regardless if the WLAN antennae is on and I checked all USB hubs and Power Management is turned off.