Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse

Although this thread has been dormant for a couple months, I thought I would put my two cents in.  I recently purchased an Inspiron 531 with many bells and whistles, including a bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo running Windows Vista Home Premium.  When I set up the system three weeks ago, it worked flawlessly (almost) until yesterday.  I was installing some software including a driver for a Wacom Intuos 3 graphics pad.  Sometime afterwards (not immediately) my keyboard disappeared!  As I tried to follow troubleshooting guidelines in brochures that came with computer I ended up with no keyboard OR mouse.  I was dead in the water, having to use a harsh reboot (holding in the on/off switch) to shut down machine!  I spent over an hour using the Dell telephone support system and will have to say that Rahul tried everything he could to get the system working again.  We managed to re-establish communication with the mouse but not the keyboard.  I finally plugged in a USB mouse and keyboard that I use on a laptop and it worked.  This morning, when I started working on the problem again, I found another place in a different brochure where it gives instructions for starting keyboard and mouse prior to logging in to Windows that worked!  I am now able to use both keyboard and mouse again.

My jury is still out on my overall impression of Dell quality.  I have used one at work for several years but have an IT department to call when something goes wrong.

Bill

I received a brochure entitled "Getting to Know Your Mouse, Keyboard, and Receiver".  Under Troubleshooting are the following instructions: 

Before logging on, establish a connection manually as follows:  1.  Press and release the Bluetooth button on the mouse and receiver.  (I literally pressed them at the same time.);  2.  Wait a minimum of 20 seconds.  3.  Press and release the Bluetooth button on the keyboard and receiver. (I pressed these almost simultaneously but not exactly at the same time.)  This worked for me.  The next instruction is "Note:  If you lose your connection after you log on, follow the Connection Wizard's on-screen instructions to reestablish the connection."  The wizard appeared automatically as Windows was loading.  After Windows had completed loading, I followed the instructions there even though I'm not sure I had lost the connection.  The Wizard instructed me to press the Bluetooth button on the keyboard and wait for it to be recognized.  It was recognized after just a few minutes and I was further instructed to enter passkey 2557 followed by the Enter key.  This resulted in the Wizard showing three links of chain with none broken and a message that the connection was established.  I have not rebooted since I did this early this morning because I am working and can't spend any more time troubleshooting the system today.

I hope this helps.

Bill

can you explain what procedure was to start mouse and keyboard prior to starting Windows or if online a link to it.  I still have problems and have called Dell a number of times but it seems like by the time I get through after being on hold I get it to work on my own.  As Vista keeps updating most of the updates have helped stabilize my system but about once a month my bluetooth mouse/keyboard go on vacation and funny thing the same thing I used to fix before doesn't work the next time.  I can remember when usb mouse/keyboards first came out.  There were problems with them too, though not as bad as with bluetooth.  As I remember the worst thing was they didn't work at all until windows finished loading which was fine as long as you didn't want to go into the bios or an F key to do something on startup.  If so you better have had a PS2 keyboard and mouse handy.

Thanks.