I bought a 2nd hand dell 600m in December, with a transfer of the complete care warranty (good until may '06). I just started to have this problem (bt goes on and off, sometimes unrecognized usb indicator comes on).

I assume I would have the older board?

If I were to call customer service, would I be able to find out if the previous owner (onwers) had ever previously RMA'd this unit to fix the bluetooth since I now have control of the warranty??

I have alread emailed Ed about my problem, hopefully I will hear from him soon so I can get the ball rolling to fix this.

Yes. Dell has started shipping new newer boards since march '05

I think so, dell logs these cases.

I'd really like to know if anyone has tried giving the tag to let them know how to fix the problem.

I called tech support at like 1am the other night because the backlight of my screen started failing (reboot would temp. fix the prob.). Anyways, they booked an appointment for me and I delivered the laptop to their service centre in New Market (20mins north of TO) yesterday and got it back today.

They replaced the screen (looks great).
They also replaced the motherboard and the bluetooth card. They told me both the new board and new bt card are the same as what was previously in the laptop.

The hardware seems work fine except that I now have 2 bluetooth icons in my system tray. The old (larger) bluetooth icon remains red (the "B" inside the blue oval) and it says that my bluetooth is off, but the new icon says bluetooth is on. Using the new bluetooth icon I was able to sync with my cellphone, but I don't know how to transfer anything. Plus, using the "my bluetooth places" in "My computer" says I don't have bluetooth!!!

I have tried going into the device manager and uninstalling everything to do with bluetooth, but when I reboot I have the same problem.

So to recap, I have:
2 system tray bluetooth icons.
original icon says bluetooth is off even when its on
new icon doesn't have the same functionality as the original one did.

Here are some screen shots:

Both BT icons:


Checking BT hardware with new icon:


Checking BT hardware with old icon:


My Bluetooth Places:


Bluetooth in Device Manager:


I really hope someone can help me with this!!

....I really don't want to have to reinstall windows just to clear this up....

Dave

Please let me know if my pics above appear to you. They were working for me a min ago, but now all I see are red "x"s.

UPDATE: I have uploaded the pix to a different host site. The images should now show in my previous post.

Please Help!

Dave, first I'd like to keep this thread relatively on-topic: as stated on the first page this thread is about a defective BT connectors on i600m/d600 motherboards and not about other BT issues such as drivers and configuration.

However, it seems in your case two drivers are confilicting with eachother: the one from dell (widcomm) and microsoft's (enumerator). Uninstall the microsoft enumerator. You should have taken out the hard drive when sending your laptop to the depot because they can really mess things up. Also make sure the bluetooth card is seen by the BIOS.

just to thank for the help on the "usb not recognized" problem. My 600m was purchased on april 2005. After 1 year and 5 months, I just got this problem recently. 600m has been quite ok, except for this problem. I will try to take the bluetooth module out. Thanks everyone for the answer.

well my friend directed to me to this forum after we tried the usual means of solving the mystery BT issues.

basically,
bought my 600m in may/2006. then in august, got the old "USB device not recognized" which drove me insane.... CSR tried to be helpful and had me run diagnostics through BIOS and write down all error codes, she also had me muck around in device manager till I was blue in the face (no pun intended).

finally i gave up. did a system restore which interstingly made the USB device not recognised message go away. but now the BT light is on, with the BT disabled. did all the usual uninstall reinstall crap. and was sure this was somehow software related...... till my friend found this forum and we tried pressure on the palm rest voila.... it works.

question, I'm concerned that this is a major design flaw. should I hold onto the lappie till warranty almost up then demand money back ( I have the basic 1 year warranty) as I have a BT dongle at home. then use the money for a new lappie? or should I settle for a new MOBO.
I like my lappie, but am concerned that this issue hasnt been fixed as it seems it has been around for at least 2 years now. maybe that is why they DC'd the popular 600m line for the 640m.

Thanks OP for posting this issue and keeping us all in the know.

Dryeyes.

As you said, this driver issue is a direct result of the bluetooth problem that many here have had, therefore many might also encounter this problem when having their bt replaced.

I did take out the hard drive when I submitted the laptop.

If, as the dell tech confirmed, the new card is identical to the one it replaced (both Dell), why does my system think there is (or was) a microsoft card?

Lastly, if I was able to sync my laptop with my cell phone (using the new bluetooth system tray icon), then I would assume the new bluetooth card must be recognized by the bios, wouldn't it?

There is no microsoft card, just the drivers which are the default ones if no others are present. There is a new bluetooth card (BT 2.0) for newer notebooks but the 600m needs a different connector for the card which to my knowledge dell does not offer.

You're right. But check the sheet that was included in the return package. Did they update the BIOS as well? I heard that people had problems when updating to BIOS a16 when running SP2.

Dave, you seem to have the same problem that this guy has (or you're the same guy):
http://delltalk.us.dell.com/supportf...sage.id=183217

That is not me on delltalk.

Okay, I unistalled the Dell bluetooth software in add/remove programs, then before rebooting I removed everything to do with bluetooth from the device manager. I then rebooted and reinstalled the dell bt software. Everything seems to work perfect now (all with my "old" bluetooth icon, which is the Dell icon). I simply removed the other icon from the system tray (right click on that icon gives the option to remove) and now everything is just was it was!

I now have full functionality between the 600m and my moto v600 and also with my logitech mx900 bt mouse.

Problem solved!

Thanks for all the help. hopefully I won't have this bad bluetooth connector issue happen to me again (unlike the repeat problem some have posted).

I'm a long time member of other forums, but this was the 1st time I've posted here (been lurking for over a year now). I appreciate the help and look forward to becoming an active member here!!

Thanks again!
Dave

I wish I had come across this forum much before I bought my 600m.It was shipped to me a couple of weeks back,and recently started giving the "USB device to recognized error" .I called up Dell tech support and they said it could be bemuses a USB flash drive was not getting recognized(which of course was not the case,the drive was recognized and accessible).They even made me reinstall the entire OS,like day one,still no use.I tried telling them that it was their motherboard issue(from what I read on this forum) but like someone mentioned here,they would not accept.It was really frustrating,I spent 5 hrs on the phone with the support, half of which I listened to music!!Anyway I had no choice but to send my laptop back for a full refund..though I liked it much,I didn't want to go thru all the Bluetooth issues....I don't think i will buy a DELL anymore,1) support is bad 2) warranty

I think you made a right decision in returning the notebook if you didn't want to deal with the issue over and over. Thanks for reporting your story. It will help others.

It is sad that Dell doesn't officially acknowledge this issue or other defective issues present on different notebooks. They're not stupid, they do know about it but an acknowledgement would constitute a recall under law which they certaintly want to avoid.

Our company ordered 4 600m's about 6 months ago. This error happened to one of them immediately (and required about 10 hours of on the phone troubleshooting before they let us send it in). Now I am getting ready to send in a second for the same problem, though I hope to make it a much shorter phone call.