Conflict between Intel 4965agn and Dell 355 Bluetooth?

This happens on my newly bought Dell Inspiron 1525. Whenever I connect a bluetooth device to my computer, such like stereo headphone or bluetooth mouse, the wireless transfer of my 802.11g wifi almost stops. The connection is still there, but just barely any transfer. Never used a draft N card before, so I wonder if this is wireless signal interference or driver problem.

 

I think both technologies use 2.4GHz radio, so its certainly possible to have interference.

If you have home WiFi, you can probably change the frequency of your WiFi network to a little higher or lower (there are 11 802.11g channels for instance, and you can pick one) and maybe get rid of the problem when you are at home.

 

Thanks for the advice. So which channel should I put my 802.11g router on? It is a linksys wrt54g.

I have used bluetooth headphone and wifi together without problem before. It was on my DELL 1405 which has a Dell 802.11g card and a older Dell bluetooth card. So I wonder if the problem is specific to the N card. If so, I will replace it with a g card.

 

The software on my Toshiba recommends that I only have either the wireless or the BT running alone, as they can affect each other's performance.

-J.B.

 

That sucks. All I want to do is to browse online wirelessly using bluetooth mouse. Or use Skype talk wirelessly through bluetooth headphone.

 

Can you use the "a" frequency instead of the "g" with your router?
Or does it only do "g" ?

 

I have the exact same computer and the exact same problem. The only work around that I have found thus far it to use the dongle that came with my mouse and it doesn't cause a problem with the internet. This is sucks because it was the reason that I purchased "internal bluetooth" in the first place. I am sure that MANY other people have this problem but they haven't yet put 2 & 2 together and realized why the internet slows down and as such are just complaining about slow internet. I did read somewhere about using one of the wlan antenna wired to connect to the third nodule on the wifi card to improve intenet performance. That is the ONLY thing that I didn't try just yet. It does no good to change frequencies because you obviously won't have that luxury when you are out and about. They need to work together or else why did they sell them.

 

My solution so far: replace wifi card with dell 1395. It is broadcomm based chip and it has the option for bluetooth collaboration. It works great

 

A dual band N router can get you connected at 5ghz frequency at N speeds and you loose the interference with the bluetooth.

Intel 4965 only does high speed N on the 5ghz band because of the problems you are seeing... the 2.4 ghz band is overcrowded.

 

its a wrt54g... only does b/g

 

I am not upgrading my router. It should work regardless or it should have a way to change the channels to get rid of the conflict. What happens when I am out at a hot spot? I would be unable to change their router. In addition, the dongle doesn't have the interference so that can't really be the issue unless the bluetooth is programmed to use the exact same frequence as the 4965 card.

 

On 04/17/08 Dell finally acknowledged the problem here:


http://support.dell.com/support/top...3575BCF3B752A27BE040A68F5B281F8F&doclang=en#2

After I install the patch for Intel the problem remains. In their wording it is difficult to know if installing the patch causes further problems with the simultaneous use of the Internet and Bluetooth or if it is suppose to resolve the problem. For the Intel card it doesn't. If another N card is the answer then Dell should send out replacements.

I am not going to rant against Dell on this issue because I have read of this problem with MANY other manufacturers as well. However, since the problem has now been discovered I expect for them to step up to the plate and fix it.

The sad part is that they don't even acknowledge ALL laptops. I have the 1525 as does the original poster so clearly that model is a victim as well.

 

I had the DW 1395 card prior to the 4965 and use a bluetooth mouse and occassionally listen to music wtih BT headphones. The ONLY time I had bluetooth problems was when I tried to use the mouse with the headphones at the same time.

My linksys G router did not ever disconnect, neither did my mouse loose connection.

 

There are really only 3 discreet 2.4 gHz Wi-Fi (b/g) channels to choose from: 1,6 and 11). Try each one and see what happens. In only one instance using a Linksys wrt54gc router, did my BT Mouse knock out the signal to my 4965 card. I often use a BT KB/Mouse and I still have a great connection to my plain G router, though I used to have A, and preferred that.

Generally, I find the Intel cards (3945, 4965) to be superior in every way, and when everyone switches over to "N", you'll be ready for it with your current card and will not have anymore BT interference issues.

 

The patch linked above for the Intel card turns OFF bluetooth collaberation. The problem in the linked Dell support pages describes having wireless connection issues that they suggest to solve it by turning BT collab. OFF. It then states that after turning BT Collab. off there may be issues when using wifi and B at the same time.

 

Hi guys, just adding my own experience in case it can help someone. In at least some cases the fault lies not with the wifi card, but with the BlueTooth card...

Apples is right about Dell's poorly or sparsely written support documents, and their not addressing all the affected models. I've learned that no information or feedback seems to flow back "uphill" at Dell, and no one talks to anyone else, especially when they're in different friggin countries. That link below lists 2 Inspirons which are virtually identical to the 15 & 17 inch Vostros, but those weren't addressed either. Also, I too didn't like the verbage on that link, and decided not to install a possibly irreversible patch that sounded like a half-assed solution. Besides, I'd already played with 2 or 3 different sets of drivers/software updates for the Intel 4965 wifi card.

A month ago I bought one of those Vostros I mentioned, the 1700, which is basically an all-black Inspiron 1721 without all the crapware pre-loaded. Out of the box I had terrible wifi throughput (< 1 Mbps) After 4 weeks of researching and testing other possible causes, I finally found that the problem was interference from the Dell 355 Bluetooth module just being enabled, not even paired with anything!
Not only did the industry and government put Bluetooth on the same band as cordless phones and 802.11 b,g, & n, but Dell programmed their QuickSet wifi control app to either turn BT on & off along with the wifi, or else enable the transciever all the time. Plus, disabling the radio at the BT systray icon only lasts until the next time you shut off the computer. Thus, even though I don't use Bluetooth very much, the damned thing was always running...

I went into the Bluetooth configuration menu (rightclick on icon) and truly disabled the radio, and tried it in Device manager as well to see if I could get the blue idiot light to go off also - I couldn't. But either way, along with the Speedguide TCP Optimizer that I'd already installed, my typical RapidShare download went from the 80 KBps I'd been getting to the 350 KBps I always get on my desktop running thru the same cable modem.

Once I found that this was the problem, I started researching the Bluetooth card and actually found an update at Dell that came out late last year. The people who put that "deactivation patch" on the site probably don't even know this other update exists... It didn't change the driver version, but it did bump the BT control applet from 5.1.0.32 to 34. This web page had even less info than the other link, but whatever it did, I can now turn on the BT and still get the high throughput, even with my cell phone paired.

As I write this it occurs to me that I should point out that my Vostro came with XP Pro. Folks with Vista should try plugging in different models on the support.dell.com website to see if they can find a Dell 355 BT update from either July or December 2007.

I hope this can help someone else... It's shameful that Dell seems to have gone straight from engineering to selling without stopping at TESTING.

 

best resolution to the problem is what i'm doing right now.

dual band router and stop using 2.4ghz, i'm switch to 802.11n 5Ghz band 40MHz range.

no more interference from anything

 

best 802.11n cards are from Atheros, had an intel, had a dell (broadcom). would never go back to either.

 

bluetooth is programmed to "hop" is changed frequency very often. there is no way to disable those hops. if it hops on the frequency you are using, you get interference.

 

The Vista Driver located on this site appears to have stopped the slow down. I first uninstalled the dell drivers and then installed this one. I didn't touch the Device Manager. I have Vista so I used V 6.0.1.6300

http://www.anycom.com/produkte/blue...usb_adapter/?id=103&partno=CC3036&tab=support

Hope it helps.