MacBook crappy Bluetooth again (after motherboard replacement)

[madmaxmedia]

Hi all,

My MacBook had intermittent 'Bluetooth: not available' problems and I had the logic board replaced under warranty.

After getting it back, everything was great...for about 3 weeks. It just started happening again, and the problem has only increased in time.
I'm on Leopard now, but the problem originated when I had Tiger.

I've searched around the internet, some people say a simple restart should fix it, others say to make sure to remove the power cord before restarting, others say to fix permissions. I've tried it all to no avail.

Has this happened to anyone else- where you get your MacBook fixed, and then the problem crops up AGAIN? I don't even use the Bluetooth, the bigger problem is that my MacBook won't sleep as long as the Bluetooth is unavailable.

Now my warranty has expired, so I'm hoping this is a software thing that can be fixed. Otherwise I'll have to go back in and hope they understand that they didn't correctly fix the problem when it was still under warranty.

 

[Techguy172]

I have never heard of this problem and i don't have my macbook works pretty well maybe you should try and get it fixed with apple again either that or go to a 3rd party place and get it fixed.

 

[tveric]

You might have a shot since it got replaced once under warranty, at getting it fixed again for free. It all depends how much you want to push. They have the power to give you what you want... but they won't, if they think you'll just go away eventually.

Basically, it sucks, but you'll probably have to be a (polite) pain in their collective ayusses if you want it fixed free.

 

[resjr67]

Don't know if this will help, but can't hurt

I had major bluetooth problems too. Try this:
Unplug your USB items and reboot. Discovered this on my G5, turns out some USB items cause the problem. If that works for you, plug them in one by one and reboot to find out which one makes it unavailable. Mine was caused by a Logitech Webcam. Hope this helps,

Riley

 

[madmaxmedia]

Thanks guys for the info.

I found a lot of similar posts at the Apple.com message boards. In many cases, this is a hardware issue having to do with the Bluetooth wiring:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6290169

I followed the guy's instructions and re-routed the Bluetooth wiring, and that has finally completely fixed the problem. Bluetooth is 100% reliable.

 

[tobefirst ⚽️]

How long did it take for you to do this, madmaxmedia?

 

[madmaxmedia]

I've taken apart a lot of Macs before, so this one wasn't too difficult. It probably took me about an hour or so, thanks to the instructions from that thread, and the great guides at ifixit.com.

After I did, the problem went away 100%.