Do it yourself: Bluetooth module for Aspire 3680

I have take over the thread but its for good cause.

Ok lets clear up things more .



ACER uses FOXCONN modules ->
Foxconn owns Hon Hai Precision Industry Company Ltd ->
Hon Hai makes the ACER part ZC1 FOX BlueTooth (T60H928.01)S/P ->
with the ACER code 54.TAXV7.001 ->
EBAY items with IC 2878D-T60H928 ->
item name T60H928 LF ->
Foxconn - Hon Hai Precision Industry ->
Genuine ACER modules.

Nice cycle , it took me long time to understand it , but i got it .


Found at virtualvillage-ca Ebay seller for 35$ shipped with cable.
The 8 Pin BLUE1 represented as BT kit description ...
Bluetooth 2.0 Module for Acer Aspire Laptop 8PIN 1.25mm


Molex page , also indicates the pin plug as PicoBlade™ 1.25mm .

The cabling between the BT module and BLUE1 are to one-to-one mode.

Conclusion , genuine modules for only 35$ .. Ok now i can got to sleep peacefully

My its on the way ... i was worry that i picked up wrong item , all the information about them are well scattered on the net with out linkage,
and my mulishness , was my only companion so far ..

I hope my findings to help many more, poor laptop souls .

BE warned .. for 6 Pin picoblades check also the sellers compatibility list.

 

My BT module arrived ..... OMG ... this is smaller than a EURO .

Yes it works ... In the beginning i tried Acer drivers , i got in to problems , i have many BT capable devices around me ... and i did many tests.

I end up using the WinXP BT software, and the simple interface ... as... wait for a file .. send a file ... this choice of software , made my Acer BT to connect with all my devices.

The latest Broadcom driver 5.5.0.3900 7-7-2008 ,
identifies it as Broadcom 2045 BT 2.0 USB device.


But i had to use the build in Radio driver , for compatibility with the Microsoft software.


My other devices ..
HP iPAQ rx5915
SE V600i
Desktop computer module BT EDR 2.0


And one first picture ... just a quick install for testing ... oh my, this is a very tiny device and the cables really small .. its Smaller than EURO


.

 

good research kiriakost

 

heya

anyone tested this is with the 5310, i have an 8 pin connector next to the mainboard usb connector.

its the other side of the HDD connector,

any advice on which type to use, i looked at virtual village is item number 350081952889 ok for my model, looks the same connector.


thanks,

 

hello, all

i remmebered i have a spare bluetooth device from a spare laptop, so i removed it, people are selling this module BCM92035NWD (broadcom).
on ebay for the ACER series,

The cable plugs in perfectly, although when i push the button it says No Bluetooth Device. The device dont flash or nething, im using x64 vista, is there anything i need to do>? I used the service guide to ensure i was using the right connector etc...

should it plug n plug and pop up like a USB device?

any ideas with ways forward please.

thanks

 

Well in my story , i plugged in the module ... start computer ... XP loaded ...
User loaded .... and then i pressed in the BT button at the front Bezel .

Acer on screen ... reported BT started .

Windows load all drivers by it self ... Win XP Home SP3 US .

Alternative i did use and the driver for my home made, erecovery DVD .
Works too .

More advanced type of BT connections , but a bit more complicate to use.

 

Ok after the tests ... the permanent installation


Unfortunately at the Travel Mate 2414, Acer did no calculate at all to let some free space for the BT module, so to clip-on or mount on .

So i had to cut one small thin line of plastic , and mount the tiny board , with double side sticky tape.

The Job was done with a very professional way , and the BT module finally found a home to stay

Transmit range .. Maximum .

Take a look of the picture .

( PS i did also and the pin-out Mod 2.1GHz , and testing stability)

.

 

Hi Guys, Very nice work... I wondering if anyone could help me a bit... I'm interested in adding a internal bluetooth using a mini USB dongle, I have a ZV5000 HP notebook with a 8 pin connector, a bit different from yours and It has been hard to find out the way to took the USB from this...

Its numbered 1 to 8, top to bottom.



Any hope?

Sorry about my English...

 

Probably I'm late to discuss anything.... ;-(

 

@ kiriakost

Did your BT Module perform as advertised by the seller (up to 2.1Mbps = Bluetooth v2.0 + EDR OR does it accomplish only 721kbps = Bluetooth v1.2)

 

My bluetooth button on the front of the bezel is loose, like its broken or something.
If I installed the blue tooth module, would it turn on automatically? Or would the button be necessary for its operation?

 

Very probably when you reassembled and closed the laptop after updating the cpu, you forgot to align the button to the internal switch on the mainboard. Open it and check

 

Ciao Letmealone (I'm Portuguese )

Question 1:
Does your "do it yourself Bluetooth module" - based on the USB dongle - power up via ACER's Bluetooth front button (onscreen message "Bluetooth enabled")?

Q2:
Also, does the ACER's Bluetooth (BT) front button light lights on/off?

Q3:
Last, when you power off the "do i yourself BT module" via front button (onscreen message "Bluettoth disabled"), is the "do i yourself BT module" really powered off?

Bottom question, to sum up:
Does this "do i yourself BT module" mod work as if a real BT ACER module was installed?

TYA for your attention

 

The bluetooth module is powered on by the frontal bluetooth button, and the blue light turns on when it is active. When it is turned off the "radio bluetooth" device disappears from the device manager, so i assume it is really turned off. To have it exactly as a real BT Acer i think you have to use a BT dongle with Widcomm chipset as the real Acer does. Ciao !

 

Ciao letmealone

TY for your answer.

Based on your 1st post I assume that the ACER's motherboard connector pin1 is a front-panel-switched 3,3V; this is, when you press that button ON, the 3,3V pin1 line goes UP, hence powering ON the LED (and the BT dongle); when you press again that button OFF, the 3,3V pin1 line goes OFF, hence powering OFF the LED (and the BT dongle).

Am I correct?

 

I think you meant BROADCOM chipset, and to use the WIDCOMM drivers

P.S./Additional info:

I own a ACER TM40002WLMi, and it has built-in cable (8 pin on the mobo side; 8 pin on the BT module side).

The Broadcom BCM90245 chipset is the chipset to go, because it supports Bluetooth v2.0 with E.D.R. (Extende Data Rate).

Also, from my understanding, any 8-pin Bluetooth Module connector is compatible with my ACER TM4002WLMi buil-in cable. This becauses the above mentioned ACER TM4002WLMi built-in cable has 8-pin on one side (BT module side, 7mm widht connector), and 8 pin on the other side(Mobo side, 11mm widht connector).

Thus, the only thing that matters when buying BT modules with cable (that have 8 pin conector on the BT Connector side!!!), is the 4, 6, or 8 pin Motherboard Connector cable.

Since I have the ACER built-in cable, I have no worries about the connectoions

 

Yes seems working as you said. The button works only if in the boot sequence a connected device is detected: if this happens the blue light turns on for some seconds before Windows is loaded. Without a device attached, i had not the 3.3 V tension on the connector when acting on the button.
And yes, you are right about BROADCOM WIDCOMM Anyway it seems that with latest drivers also the cheaper dongles using Bluesoleil seem working well with Vista.

 

Nice info! Thanks!

On XP, any of those 5€ (or cheaper!) USB BT dongles will work, regardless of its chipset? I thought, Bluesoleil was a chipset to avoid, even on XP. Am I wrong? Any chipset works well on XP?

DRIVERs:

Which driver do you recommend to download to work on XP? WIDCOMM's drivers (where to download, which version, UPs & CONs)? or XP default drivers?

Be aware that I never used BT before, so this questions might be funny to you: are the XP drivers really bad (as I read on a website)?

 

I think that the bad reputation of Bluesoleil dongles is mostly due to poor or limited drivers, also for some time plagued by incompatibilies with Vista. When i used the dongle as normal USB Bluetooth with my old TM280 under XP, there were hacks allowing to use Widcomm drivers, making Bluesoleil dongles work much better. Now it seems that the hack is possible also under Vista... even if the Bluesoleil drivers seem improved and compatible now with the newer OS. Anyway, googling around will give you better answers !

 

I did never think of doing this test .. all my BT devices had less transfer ability.

 

Ok did direct file transfer from the desktop to laptop ...

2.808 KB (mp3 file ) took 30 seconds .... i think that is a good number .

2.808 KB / 30Sec = 93,6 KB per second .

I tested two USB BT dongles ,
an ISSCEDRBTA ( BT 2.0 EDR) and another one called as BT2 ( the one that looks like half coin) .

Both gave similar results ...

Something that i can not test, is the speed between equal (Acer BT modules).

I could be limited by the cheap USB dongles , so i can not verify anything more than the current test .

 

hi, i have an ho dv2660br dv2000 series laptop. I've done this hack following this guide, and it works fine, but as the wireless switch controls both wireless and bluetooth cards, if i switch it off, it doesnt work, so its perfect. But an issue is that if i start the laptop with it already in on position, only wireless works, bluetooth dongle is not recognized, so i need to turn off and on the switch and it is recognized perfectly. Does anybody have any idea of an solution to this isssue?

 

All ACERs that can use the internal BT , has double power buttons.

You HP Pavilion, looks to suffers from bad design .

Still I am happy , that it worked for you too .

 

thanks kiriakost for your answer. Today I disassembled it again and i conected the pin 1 to pin 5 (that should on the blue light form wireless switch) and after this, the blue light (when wireless card is removed, so means that bluetooth is on, the light goes blue, so worked as expected, because before, the dongle works but not the blue light [it turns on when wireless card is turned on, so the switch is to both wireless card and bluetooth]). I'll restar my laptop and i'll edit this post to say if now it starts up with both bluetooth and wireless on or like it was, with only wireless on.

<:edited:>
well, it still start up laptop with only wireless card on, with bluetooth off, so i need to mode wireless switch to off and again to on, and it works, maybe it was designed to work like this, as we dont use bluetooth all the time, like wireless, so it helps to reduce the amount of radiation we are exposed.

 

Nop , the WiFi are more powerful than BT .

Still , if you know how to start it up , i think that you are ok.

On the Acer laptops , the BT power management , could be made, even by the ACER power management profiles (software) .

So , the front power switch , acts like the main source for electricity and starting up, and the ACER software, can turn it on or off too.

 

yeah, i know that wireless is realy much more powerfull than bluetooth, but, uhh, i dont know why it works like this. In hp laptops, we have only one switch, called "wireless". This switch turns on and off both wireless and bluetooth card, but when i starts up the laptop with the swich in on position, wireless is powered on but bluetooth not, so i need to turn the switch off and back to on again, and during this, it turns off the wireless, and on bluetooth and wireless.

 

Just thought I'd add, the TM 5320 uses a 4 pin module, but you have to open the casing completely to access it, I purchased a 4 pin Acer module from ebay for about £15

 

hi guys. after some google search about my problem, i was reading some pages, and in one, i found this: "the pin 1 of the bt dongle is controlled by the on/off siwch". After reading this, i (a bit late) realised that that's why we connect the pin 1 to 5 (to turn on the blue light, it works because it throw energy to the led). As my laptop switch controls both wireless and bluetooth (as i described in some posts above), it was supposed to turn on both if it is in the on position and turned off if in off position. But, if i turn laptop on with the switch already in on position it only turns wireless on. So, to turn BT on, i need to turn it off and on again, after this, both work. As while i was testing it, i removed the wireless card to check if the blue light turn on only with bluetooth, but as i explained, if i turn the lappy on with the switch already in on position, the bluetooth doesn't appear in device manager and the light is ambar, but, if i switch it off and on, it turns bluetooth and the bluelight on too.
Having it in mind, i tought: "as in the original modules this issue don't happen, maybe in this laptop it has an "contol pin" that checks if it is on or not". But as we need to connect pin one to pin five, how original modules turn the blue light on? I dont think that they have a "jumper/bridge" to do it. So, if anybody know an possible solution, please, say it here.

PS. sorry if i had to write too much to say almost nothing (i'm from brazil, and some specific words make a big difference)

 

fernando , if you own a simple external BT module , and trying to fix it ,
no one can help you about making it 100% operational as you like to be.

The ACER ones , have 8 cables on them , and they are programed to be controlled , with power on + "software" power on.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=22914&d=1219269094

 

Hp ones have 8 pins too. I'll try, in next time i'll disassemble it, to re-power (as the switch turns on or off the power on first pin of the header), and maybe it will work as expected, because it's anoying to turn the switch off and on everytime the bluetooth will be used, if for example, i had a bluetooth mice.

 

Post a picture of your BT module friend ... i need to see that.

By the way , when I say 8 pins , are in both directions.

 

yeah, i understand. My module is a very cheap issc chip based bt usb dongle.

It's very similar to this one:


I've soldered everything as described on this topic. (i've done the diode jumper to correct the voltage of the dongle)

 

Well, I had guessed well , what was your problem ..

The true laptop BT solution, it will cost you at list 16EUR or 20$ .

The rest options called experimental , and as such , the results are not top .

Take care .


( About this picture and the Antenna )
This is a carbon plastic ( Semi conductive material ) ... thats why it does not need cable .

 

oh yeah men, this is the most powerfull technology we've ever dreamed!

and about my issue, when i had changed the power source, i'll post here. At least i expect that it doesn't kill the usb port instead the power... hehehe

 

Well, some days ago, i bought another audio board for my laptop (the one that have the p2 connectors), this new one have mini-toslink spdif output, so, i disassembled my lappy to put it on. Drawing that it is disassembled, i took my multimeter to check why i have this issue with my diy bluetooth dongle. And i found an answer. I've discovered that if i boot up with the wireless switch already in "on" position, it dont send power to the bt dongle, but, it is turned off, and on again, it will power up the dongle. So, i think that this is a internal BIOS setting (once my lappy dont have the original bt dongle, that is a broadcom one, so probably the bios checks the product id and vendor id to "see" if it is insalled). I've tryed to take 3.3v from an mini-pci express "un"-slot (because it only have the place for it, but not the slot), but i dont get this voltage (it was between - and 0.4, maybe some components are faulty). In that moment, i dont had the idea to get this power from the other slot i have (for wireless), so right now, my situation is the same, and as i already assembled it, i'll wait until next disassembly to do another mod. Bellow u can see some pics (CLICK ON THUMBNAILS TO ENLARGE).


This is the cables i've soldered into the bt dongle header (i kept it on place because i plan to upgrade it to the original module when it will be payable $$ (here in brazil one original module costs like 8 cheap usb modules)


With an "good looking" finish


cheap usb dongle placed where the original one should be


This is the "new" (was taken out from an bricked hp laptop) audio board with mini-toslink (the p2 plug with black part on it's back)


This is the old one, that have only mic, 2 audio outputs and consumer IR.


This is how it looks now. You can see into the 2nd audio output the "led" from the mini-toslink (in hp models that have this optical spdif originaly, the word SPDIF is printed in the right side of the 2nd audio output)

Hehe, my lappy is quite "pimped" now

 

hi,
does T60H928.00 have usb interface? where i can get the pin diagram/datasheet for this module. Actually i had taken it out from my spare laptop and want to connect it with my desktop as BT dongle. i have one bt audio device which strangely work only with this module, thats why i am doing this.

 

can i still use the bluetooth button to turn on & off bluetooth on my aspire 3680 if im using usual dongle?

 

No, the bluetooth button controls the internal bluetooth connector.

 

oic,tanx ya!im a newbie here hope can learn a lot 4rm y`all