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MacBooks Experiencing Bluetooth Problems
flowolf writes in with news that Apple seems to be having difficulty getting to grips with a Bluetooth problem on MacBooks. Bluetooth goes unavailable intermittently from what users are assuming is a hardware problem, and while it's out the machines won't stay in sleep mode. Complaints started last spring on the Apple forum, which is still quite active. Many people have had to send their MacBooks for repair more than once without a satisfactory resolution.
I got a sweet offer on an Apple store refurb GMA950-based iMac (the late 2006 educational one). That means having to use external Bluetooth. Sometimes, it simply doesn't see the dongle (I've tried 2, my current choice being one of Belkin's that came with a BT keyboard) on reboot (and very occasionally on waking), so I have to remove and re-insert. On my old Powerbook, which used PCMCIA Bluetooth, sleeping kills Bluetooth more often. They're both running 10.4.10, so I concluded that something was just crappy in Apple's Bluetooth support - every other USB/PCMCIA device is detected fine. But I guess that provides a solution for people with problems: disable internal Bluetooth and find a dongle.
It also seems to take a good 10 seconds to reconnect all Bluetooth-connected devices, but that might be to do with the dongles being Bluetooth 1.x - can anyone please suggest a USB Bluetooth 2.0+EDR USB dongle that works grrreat in OS X?
I have an Apple Macbook Pro and I've been using bluetooth wireless keyboard, mouse, cellphone, and headset without problems.
I'm not saying that these people aren't having problems. What I am asking is why this is "news" when the thread is old except a single post that was made this morning (maybe by the submitter?).
Anyway I'm sure that their problems will be resolved.
One last thing, it is hard to tell if the old issues were resolved from a forum thread because we depend on the original poster to keep us updated... Some people don't come back and post "Hey I found the problem...".
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
I use Bluetooth on a daily basis, though it is mostly with a Nokia 6126 and a Motorola headset. I also have a cheap Bluetooth USB adapter, and I use that fairly frequently. On Kubuntu, I can push files and games to my phone, pull pictures from my phone, and even control Amarok from my phone to a degree. I had similar luck with transferring files under my previous Gentoo installation. I can also connect my headset to my computer for Skype after running a command with the address of the headset.
My friend's new RIZR phone will not work with my phone, but it accepted my headset and took files from my computer (though slowly). USB was a better option for transferring files, which worked (to my surprised, as the previously owned RAZR didn't work with USB).
However, I have began to have more disconnects and range problems since moving into college dorms. Most of the time, I can see at least two other computers (one of which I know is a Mac). I don't know how many other devices are out there, but I do think that this is the problem (since disconnects happen even putting the devices adjacent to each other). The disconnections are mostly between my phone and my headset, though. Once my computer gets connected to something, it's pretty good.
Regarding Windows (2000 in this case), I recall hearing problems from my dad about using a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard on a desktop computer. The problem was not disconnects (usually). It was causing the CPU usage to skyrocket during screensaver (which had to be set to 5 minutes for a program he used for work).
This is here so you don't ignore the last two lines of my posts.
Verizon for sure disables many of the bluetooth (and other) features of their phones. If you are feeling brave, you can go to howardforums.com, look up your make/model of phone and see if they have instructions as to how to enable these features. You do run the risk of bricking your phone, you most certainly will void your warranty, and Verizon will not even look at the phone if you bring it into the shop, but you can hack the phones to turn on all the features that they disable.
TODO: Insert witty sig
It is called wire lath (spelling?) It was (maybe still is) used with plaster walls. I had it in a house built in the 1950s. FM, wireless signals only worked in that room, not room to room. Even cell signals had issues. Then again having that wire on the walls and ceilings made each room like a Faraday cage.
Not a day goes by that I don't have a customer asking me if "I know about the problems that Apple is having with ____ product". More often than not its not a widespread problem at all. It's an isolated incident that has happened to a handful of people who have found eachother on Apple's support message board. By far the most common of these loaded questions i frequently receive is "Has Apple fixed the problem with the laptops running unbearably hot?"
The most common "widespread" problems that I see (and I work at an Apple authorized service provider) are bad power supplies on G5 iMacs (and this is extremely widespread), bad logic boards on G3 iBooks, and swelling batteries on 17" Macbook Pros. All of these problems except the iBook logic boards are still covered under warranty extension programs whether or not you paid for the extended warranty.
Twitter knows what the problem is! He's here to help.
Through the magic of his genius, and technical intuition, with almost no evidence whatsoever that the problem isn't circuitry, it's not temperature, it's not a bad driver, it's not any one of a hundred, if not a thousand potential causes, but that it's ACPI.
And ergo, despite ACPI being a standard developed by hardware companies, including Intel, HP, and others, we know the culprit, and who to blame:
Microsoft! Sorry, uhh, Micro$oft.
Fear not, loyal Apple fans and Linux lovers, we cannot lay fault at Apple's feet for this. It's purely the workings of the Evil Empire(TM). After all, Twitter said so...
A lot of interference on both Bluetooth and WiFi can be traced back to microwaves, cheap electronics and so forth. Why I say that? Simple: my neighbour starts cooking and I get interference on WiFi, I start cooking and I get no WiFi, I replace microwave with new model and WiFi is strong as ever. Everything that has something to do with waves or radiography these days is in the 2,4GHz band. It used to be the 433MHz band that wasn't useable, now it's the 2,4GHz band.
Especially cheap/sloppy electronics and landline wireless phones. Manufacturers think they can use the whole spectrum at full blast to just send an 8-bit code in serial to the receiver (those cheap 'radio' remote controls). If you look at the circuitry basically it's an excited crystal that is extremely amped up (which adds lots of sideband noise if you put it on a scope), somewhat filtered with a small capacitor and what we used to call either a resistor or coil is now just a little squiggle on the printboard. And for the wireless phones, I have seen those things eat up literally 6 WiFi channels at the same time every time it is used.
And yes, Bluetooth, WiFi and the likes are all on 2,4GHz and as long as the FCC keeps their thumb on and only gives us very little of the air (or ether if you're really old) to use. For the rest of the air you have to pay big licensing costs.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com