I’m a bit frustrated. I feel like a moron not being able to get through step one… Bluetooth v1.2 USB Module and the XTND Connect Blue sorftware setup. Am I an idiot, or could there be something physically wrong with the dongle? I’m running XP and tried it both on a computer w/ SP2 and another w/o. I’ve also tried both the supplied, and the updated software. I follow the installation instructions to a T, but after I restart, and windows begins its start-up processes, I get a dialogue box stating ‘Device is not available’. After clicking on XTNDConnectBlue under Control Panel, the same box appears, but still takes me to the Bluetooth Application Settings form. Under the ‘Bluetooth’ tab, I can see that 'My Bluetooth Address: Unable to get local address, and assume this means something is wrong. The next tab over, under Bluetooth Ports, all four connection types have been assigned a COM… just sitting there… waiting for me to get this right and access 'em… ugh. I’s been a long time since something as trivial as device installation has given me so much grief. I obviously need help. Please tell me, what am I doing wrong?
We’ve been getting a few reports of people having problems with this package, but it sounds to me like yours might just be a port conflict. Do you have any other Blue Tooth software on your machine? That’s been known to cause trouble.
Pete
Hmmm. I’m pretty sure it’s not a port conflict. I took everything over to a friends house (my computer wiz buddy’s). We tried it in both, my tower and laptop again. Then in his laptop. All results were the same. We uninstalled everything, installed SP2 on all the machines and nothing but an occasional connection. Windows knows the dongle’s there, but unless the dongle and SMiRF are just about touching, nothing happens. Also, using Windows’ generic Blutooth drivers - assigns two separate virtual serial COM ports (incoming and outgoing serial); we’ll say COM4 and COM7. While on COM4 the SMiRF flashes a green LED - while on COM7, the SMiRF indicates a steady red LED. Note that this happens while the modules are nearly touching. When I stray too far from the dongle, the SMiRF is gone and flashes green on either COM. I don’t know what the LED indicators mean. I need some serious help I think. Well, thanks for the response. I’ll keep trying I guess.
Alright, I went out and bought a Motorola Blue tooth dongle, and all is good. The red means it’s connected, green flashing… waiting to connect. I have great range… so I’d say through trial and error, it was the USB dongle and it’s BlueConnect software… well and a little on my end from my lack of experience w/ Bluetooth.