Bluetooth Ordeal...
 

gah, so a couple weeks ago i get my brand spanking new sony ericsson z600 cell phone to replace my t68i.

finally im ready to take advantage of bluetooth and its easy to use synching features with the phone. so i go out and buy a d-link dbt-120 bluetooth adaptor.

i get home sunday night and install the mofo. but when i restart my pc after doing the install i cannot get online, at all. the thing changed my ip address and would not let me renew it.

d-link canada tech support was useless "sir, i havent heard of this issue, try updating the drivers or reinstall tcp-ip"

finally today i just did a system restore (thank you xp) and everything worked again (i couldnt get online before cause cable company had to replace a line yesterday that a bird or small rodent ate)

anyway... whats the deal here? why did my ip change? why couldnt i get online? why the hell didnt the new drivers install properly? any thoughts or clues?

the bluetooth software creates a bluetooth network profile in "My bluetooth places" and the networking folder. this bluetooth network tries to assign itself 192.168.0.1 as it's IP. Now your network card or router (depending on your setup) needs that IP, so your going to need to change the bluetooth network to an IP like 192.168.0.2 so that there are not two peices of network equiptment atguing over the IP. You could also just right click on "bluetooth network" in network connections after installing the bluetooth software and disable it if you don't plan on using it (a cellphone can't access that bluetooth profile anyway). That should avoid the conflict, but isn't a long term solution.

ok, i'll have to give that a shot later. one more thing, how would i assign the bluetooth network a new ip?

http://rescomp.rh.uchicago.edu/rc/ho...eless-xp/4.png

In the network services area of the control panel, you;ll see a list of your connections. In the "LAN or High Speed Connection" area, you'll see "Bluetooth networking" Right click on it and choose properties. The proerties window will show you the name of the connection and services used in a small window. this list of services shouls be:
Client for microsoft networks
File and Print sharing
Tcp/IP

Double click on TCP/IP and you'll get a box like so:
http://www.fileshosts.com/palm/tungs...properties.jpg

In the Ip box enter a new number.
the number should be 192.168.0.X, where x is a number between 3-5. 1 and 2 are used by your router and network card and are thus taken. When bluetooth tried to use an in use the same ip address, it took down your network.
In a pinch you can also simply righ click on "Bluetooth networking" in the network panel at the top here and choose "disable" since your phone can't use network access via bluetooth (that's for palms and PocketPC's)

i installer the bugger again. but this time i disabled the bluetooth network. it didnt make any difference at all. i still could not get webpages to display or any messenger program to connect. i tried to repair my other network connection but it could not renew the ip address.


also, on an unrelated note. i somehow have a network bridge set up. beats me... anyway, when i delete it i cannot get online as well...

but i'll try changing the ip in a little bit, after i eat some lunch and decide not to throw the rocks at my computer.

Do you have ICS (internet connection sharing) enabled for any of the connections on the computer? That's a know problem causer when mixed with bluetooth. Also make sure that in the bluetooth network properties, that ICS isn't enabled in the advanced tab. That's a sure fire way to cause a conflict since the network will try to bridge with your lan. Some bluetooth drivers turn ICS on, some don't. It's something that needs to be a standardized behaviour but bluetooth is quite lacking in consistancy yet, given that it's not yet reached critical mass.