Unstable Bluetooth Inernet surfing

[jrdwyer]

I have set up my x50 with a Windows xp computer with Linksys bluetooth dongle and Netgear wired router/cable modem to surf the net using bluetooth on the x50. I used the network bridging on xp to connect the bluetooth connection and the internet/lan connection. It works for a while and then will freeze the screen and require me to do a hard reset to get the x50 running again. This is like a Windows 95 headache all over again!

So any ideas why this might be happening? Some possibilities I have considered: This mobile version of Windows and/or IE are just really unstable, the bluetooth receiver/transmitter on the x50 is not working properly all the time, mobile Windows/IE is having a problem being assigned an ip address by the router (router is 192.168.0.1), networking bridging is not stable, or I have not set the thing up properly.

I did not buy the x50 for this purpose, but it's nice to be able to sit on the couch and check the news sites on the web. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[jrdwyer]

This is a follow-up to the above post.

I contacted Dell Support. They first tried to help me do a Bios update using ActiveSync. This did not work as USB stopped working before update could be done, even though USB was shown to be working fine on Device Manager. We tried this twice. They said I probably already had the latest version with my X50 and this is why it wouldn't update.

So then they sent me a new X50. As far as the above problem of using Bluetooth and Networking Bridging to remotely surf the net, it failed again with the new device. Same problem as above, device locks up and requires a hard reset. So now I guess I won't be using the X50 for this purpose. Oh well, most new technology fails to live up to its hype.

[jrdwyer]

Final Post on the above issue.

I have finally been able to surf the net wirelessly using Bluetooth and the Axim X50. I followed the guidelines in the following sites as a basis for making changes to my computer's setup:

http://www.spug.net/features/btadapter.htm
http://www.clieuk.co.uk/surf.shtml

Essentially, I stopped using Network Bridging and started using Internet Connection Sharing in Windows XP. I also changed my router setup so that it did not use 192.168.0.1 as its address. Apparentely, the mini DHCP server on the Bluetooth network connection requires this address.

Using Bluetooth to surf is probably not as good an option as Wi-fi as it requires soft resets ocassionally. I just make sure to do this before starting each session. I also make sure to clear out the temp. internet files, cookies, and history to free up memory. You also have to ocassionally turn the computer's bluetooth adapter on and off as it sometimes get lost. The Linksys Bluetooth adapter has nice range (claimed 100m) as it picks me up anywhere in our two story house. And the throughput rate is good enough for me as it is faster than the dial-up connection we had up until recently.

So, as a cheap way to surf wirelessly, the bluetooth setup does ok.