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Enable Bluetooth on Lenovo T400 or T500?

I have a Lenovo T500 (2242) laptop on which I clean installed Windows 8 Pro. It does have the bluetooth hardware inside, and that worked fine in Vista and Windows 7, though I needed Lenovo's "Access Connections" software to turn on the bluetooth radio. And by this I mean actually turn it on so that the OS could see it and use it; if the radio was turned off via Access Connections (specifically the included FNF5 utility), then neither the OS nor the rest of Access Connections even knew the card was present. There is no hardware switch specific to this. There's a switch for turning WiFi on and off, which I keep in the "on" position at all times.

Now under Windows 8, I cannot turn the Bluetooth card on. It is enabled in BIOS. I see the Bluetooth light come on during the BIOS part of boot, but as soon as Windows starts, the light goes out, and Windows does not seem to know the card is present. I have installed the following software or driver packages in my attempts to solve this:

  1. Bluetooth with Enhanced Data Rate Software II for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit) - ThinkPad (actually this did not install; Win8 warned it was incompatible and directed me to the Broadcom site; see #4).
  2. ThinkVantage Access Connections for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) - Notebooks (installs but is no help - the software runs but says nothing at all about bluetooth)
  3. Hotkey Features Integration for Windows 8 (32-bit, 64-bit), 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit), XP (32-bit, 64-bit) and 2000 - ThinkPad (installs, but hotkeys such as Fn + F5 produce no action at all).
  4. Broadcom bluetooth driver installer package. The installer tries to find an installed bluetooth device. It fails. Apparently because the card is not turned on!
None have helped at all. There is no evidence that the Bluetooth card is installed.

In other forums I have seen advice to enable the Bluetooth card from within the "Change PC settings" Win8-style control panel. It is not there; see this image for confirmation.

Can anyone help me get this silly bluetooth up and running? I have included "T400" in the title because the T400 and T500 were essentially the same computer - one just has a larger screen and chassis size than the other.

Thanks for your consideration.
Answer
Answer
Hello,

Lenovo has released Hotkey Features Integration on 30 Apr 2013. I've installed but it didn't help at my case.
I've manually browsed to the extraction folder (C:\DRIVERS\HOTKEY\OSD\F5-8M in my case) and found file "TpFnF5.exe". It does exactly what I need - manages all radios. I assume Windows 8 has taken control over Fn+F5 which originally should launch this app.
Hope it helps.
PS: in C:\DRIVERS\HOTKEY\OSD\F5 is similar app but without "Airplane Mode" switch.

Mantas

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Last updated April 21, 2025 Views 35,305 Applies to: