Can you buy internal bluetooth for a G5 - not BTO?

brianleahy

brianleahy

Colonel Panic
My G5 did not ship with built in bluetooth - but I was hoping to add internal bluetooth 'card' (or whatever it is) soon.

I see no sign of any Apple internal bluetooth card anywhere on store.apple.com -- is there any way to get one?
 
Yes, you can ask at any shop that provides Apple authorized service. They will have the cards, or can order one, and will install it for you. The question is whether you can buy just the card. Apple does not consider this user-installable, and a service department isn't likely to sell without installing it, too.
 
Aren't there Bluetooth USB dongles out there? I thought Belkin made one. This should enable Bluetooth on any machine with USB. Check out Belkin's site. The only thing is, it isn't an Apple Computer solution.
 
Yeah, there are. But the way I have things set up, USB ports aren't that plentiful at the moment.

But, if the alternative is to take the CPU in for service, I may go that route anyway.
 
you could fill one of your pci slots with a usb2 card. these usually have internal usb slots on the back of them, into which you stick in and leave the bluetooth dongle.

you also then have 4 more usb2 slots.

however, i might add that my usb2 card ended up conflicting, sending all the standard usb slots haywire. wait, i just start a thread about this. it's a problem.
 
I just purchased the Apple "Service Part" bluetooth module.

It should arrive tomorrow and I'm going to try my luck installing it in my FW800 MDD dualie.

What happened with your quest for bluetooth?
 
I was told buy a guy at the Apple store that the blue tooth module is not considered a user servicable part, and it would void your warrenty (if you have still have it).

Just a heads up.
 
thanks for the note, HateEternal. The Apple genius bar guys are great unless you ask a question for which their scripts have no "official" answer such as this.

great link, bobw. It's a good reference, even if it's not the same system.

I've built a peecee or two. The guts of my G4 don't look too mysterious to me. The utter lack of definitive info on the BT module's location and connections means I will have to take my time going in, but I'm not too worried. I'll post my results be they success or smoldering ruins.
 
Me, I ended up just buying the D-Link adapter. I had a free USB port on the back of my display, so I just put it there.
 
I was totally bummed when my G5 arrived Tuesday and I found out there was no bluetooth. Oh well, I decided to order the D-Link Adapter as well, $20 bucks from Amazon instead of $99 for the Airport + Bluetooth card from Apple. ;)
 
The antenna cord and logic board seat for apple's oem bluetooth module are both located by the airport card at the upper front corner. (This is on a dual 1.42Ghz G4 MDD FW800 that shipped w/o the oem BTO module)

I'll try and get some pics soon up. It's easier than the G5 BTO install linked earlier.

It works!

I don't have the right screws to hold it in place, but they shouldn't be hard to find. The total cost is going to be less than $25 and I don't have to add a dongle. Now I can get rid of this lousy old "wireless" desktop and its 3 feet of range and its huge dongle and get a BT desktop. Simple pleasures...
 
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