I have a Lenovo IdeaPad U350 2963-47U, which came without a built-in Bluetooth capability. I recently bought a Bluetooth mouse, and so I need to add Bluetooth connectivity to my machine. I thought about getting one of those $1 USB Bluetooth dongles from Ebay, but was hoping to find a more elegant (if slightly more expensive) solution, such as retrofitting an internal Bluetooth card. I do not know, however, if this is at all possible, and even if so, what is the model number of the device I should get (is it an integrated part of a new WAN adapter or a separate card?)?
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Well, after calling Lenovo tech support, I was given a model number of the Bluetooth module that normally goes into these notebooks -- it's a Broadcom BCM92046. Checking Ebay confirmed that a few of those are available for sale there. So it looks like this may be possible. The question now is where does this thing go. I took off the access panel at the bottom of the laptop (the one covering memory, hard drive, etc.) and it looks like there is a an empty space with a built-in connector at the lower right-hand corner of the opening, together with two loose wires (power?) labeled 1 and 2 (similar type wires are attached to the WAN card, which is located up and to the left of this empty space). Is this where the Bluetooth card go or is it a space for a 3G card? (Wish somebody could post a hi-res picture of what their U350 looks like with the access panel removed.) Looking at the available small pictures of the BCM92046 module, however, I see that it has a multi-wire connector, but no two separate extra wire attachment points. Could somebody who has one of those confirm how exactly it is hooked up? Perhaps it goes under the keyboard somewhere, but I just didn't manage to get the top pane off -- any instructions on how to get it done? (I removed all the screws at the bottom, including those under the battery and the hard drive, but there is still something holding the keyoboard down near the center).
Retrofitting Bluetooth to U350
Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by flyakite12, Feb 22, 2010.