Windows 7 and Inspiron E1505 - Bluetooth issues

misterdan,

Thank you for contacting the Dell Community Forum.  What version of the BIOS are you currently running on your E1505?  If you haven't tried this, you may want to consider updating to the latest version, available here.

If you want to turn it off go into the BIOS setup and turn it off there.

Then you can disable the Bluetooth Service in Services (these specs refer to XP as I dont' have 7 yet)

and uncheck the Bluetooth.lnk in the startups.

I have the A17 vversion which I think is the latest on the Dell driver site.

BTW the reason I turned it off was that it was flaky. I bought a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and mouse thinking it was a great idea with the laptop. 

Sometimes the E1505 would "pick up" the Logitechs quickly after boot sometimes not. It was a pain the A.

I eventually gave up and went with standard units.

I have updated my bios I was previously running A14, now I'm running A17. But, if the light was working when I had Windows XP, then would that be the problem with the Windows 7 upgrade?

Currently I have disabled the bluetooth module (Dell wireless 350 bluetooth module). When enabled the icon would be a white bluetooth logo surrounded by a blue oval, previously I could disable the ratio (via a menu option) and when the ratio was disabled it would be a red bluetooth logo surrounded by a blue oval. Is there a piece of software I need to install to have this basic functionality- so that I can just disable the ratio and not the driver?

The bluetooth connection itself works (I can connect via bluetooth to my phone) but during every part of the connection process the light above, north really, the keyboard does turn on or off. Again, is there a piece of software I need to install to have this basic functionality (this time referring to the light)?

misterdan,

Since you updated the BIOS and are still having problems, I think your problem is most likely driver-related.  As of this point, I've been unable to find Windows 7 drivers for the Bluetooth module in your system.  However, I did find a thread on the Dell forum indicating that some users were able to get their Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth modules working in Windows 7 32-bit by installing the Vista 64-bit drivers for the Dell Wireless 370 for the Alienware M15x.  Your system has the Dell Wireless 350, which is different from the 355, but close enough to make it possible that the 370 driver will work for you also.  The driver can be found here.  You may want to give it a shot and see if it works.  If you do decide to try the 370 driver, please post the results here.

Hello. I came to this discussion looking for resolution to my lack of bluetooth after upgrading to windows 7. I did use the link for the 370 driver. It worked perfectly. Thanks for the hint.

Mike

The problem was not with the bluetooth itself (since that part worked) but with the blue indicator light not turning on and if there was a way to disable the radio within the bluetooth application menu

On the device manager, under bluetooth radios: (with both working correctly according to device manager)

- dell wireless 350 bluetooth module

- microsoft bluetooth enumerator

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Driver location: c:\Windows\sytem32\

Driver provider: microsoft on both

The 1st one:

DRIVERS\bthport.sys

DRIVERS\bthusb.sys

fsquirt.exe

The 2nd one's driver files:

DRIVERS\bthenum.sys

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not sure if this is related but under the devices and printers the icon for the dell wireless 350 bluetooth module is what looks like a usb stick with a blue light being emitted on the end

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mhenyon: I would be interested in knowing if your indicator light turns on and off and if you have an option to disable the radio in the bluetooth application menu

I got these drivers to work on my E1505 running the 64 bit version of win7. Thanks!

I did the same thing yesterday and am Still having issues. I posted them here:

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19312698.aspx

I am also having bluetooth issues and the card wasn't even showing up. I got the card to show up from this thread. I thought that would have corrected my device manager problems thinking that those 2 items where the bluetooth card not showing up, but now that the bluetooth card is showing up, they are still there. Everything else went pretty smooth, windows update found the X1400 drivers on it's own, which i guess was an issue with others earlier on as well.

Any suggestions? I never used the bluetooth before when I had XP and I doubt I will now, but I was thinking of getting a bluetooth mouse, maybe my setting are messed up on that. Mostly I want to figure out the Base System Devices that are that are still messed up in my device manager.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide

Mike

In regards to your earlier issue about how to turn off the Bluetooth device, you can change the BIOS settings so that the Fn+F2 switch will only turn on/off the bluetooth only and not the Wi-Fi. By default, it is set to turn on/off both the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Go into the startup menu by pressing F2 during boot. Then go into Wireless > Wireless Hotkey and set it to "BT only." Make sure you leave both the Wi-Fi and BT settings to "enabled" or else they won't respond to the switch. Then reboot, and voila! You can turn the Bluetooth on/off by pressing Fn+F2. The only drawback to doing this is that you will not be able to turn the Wi-Fi on/off, but I assume you wouldn't have much reason to do that anyway.

@dw17dw17:----- the( base system devices )  basically are chipset, you have to download its driver from DELL drivers.com. when you will install driver on your PC the problem you are facing will be done..

Thanks for the suggestion, the 370 driver worked on my laptop!