jeffcraven.com: T40 Bluetooth upgrade

Friday - June 24, 2005

T40 Bluetooth upgrade

Unfortunately, my IBM T40 laptop does not have native bluetooth. The good news is that the T42p does, and one of my coworkers was nice enough to let me try out a little procedure on her laptop. I swapped the modem card in my laptop with the bluetooth/modem card in hers. Then, rather than disassembling half of her laptop, I simply ordered the antenna kit for < $4.00 directly from IBM. After an hour or two for installation, everything came up fine. The only caveat, is that you don't get the little bluetooth LED on laptop itself. I've heard you can replace that display to get it, but it's not worth the time or effort. In case you want to do this yourself here are the part numbers:

Bluetooth/Modem card for T4x laptops: 91P7315
Bluetooth Antenna for 14.1" in screens: 91P6897

Here is the ordering page, and here is the service manual.

Obviously, I make no warranty about any changes you make to your laptop. It worked fine for me, but if something bad happens to your laptop, don't blame me.

Posted by jcraven at June 24, 2005 4:15 PM

Comments

You know I've had my T42p since last year -- still haven't found a use for the bluetooth yet.

Posted by: dave at June 25, 2005 10:06 AM

Yeah, but I just got a new Moto V635 that has bluetooth. Works well, except for a tad slow.

Posted by: Jeff at June 28, 2005 10:23 AM