connecting printer wirelessly

I am trying to connect my Cannon MP610 printer to laptops by wireless connection. Both laptops are running on Bluetooth to broadband currently. I have fitted the printer with a generic bluetooth dongle but do not know how to make the connections. I am running XP Prof SP3 on both the HP Compaq nx8220 and the Toshiba Satellite Pro L100. Neither computer has a Bluetooth icon (My Bluetooth Place) on the desktop nor had one in Control Panel, but I have plugged the dongle into each computer and it has enabled windows to load some standard software which has put an icon into Control Panel and also an icon in the task tray. So that is where I am, and cannot see how to make the connections to the printer. Blogs seem to be saying that I need to open My Bluetooth Place to tell it to look for the printer but I don't have this (I am not sure why it is missing). I have tried to set connection settings in Bluetooth Devices but it will not apply these. Help in connecting the laptops to the printer to be able to send data would be appreciated. rgds…..bar457

Right, I can't be specific as the dongles don't always have the same terms applied etc, but hopefully I can guide generally and you will be able to see what I am talking about each time to get a result. The first thing is confirm the bluetooth dongle is installed properly, without that we would get no where, so go into the control panel, open System, and click the hardware tab, then click Device Manager, look down the list for any exclamation marks, report back what stands out if applicable, then we can move on. Once the dongle is confirmed installed you need to right click on the icon in the task bar, look for any option to Add a device, or Show Devices or similar, basically this will make it do a search for bluetooth devices, needless to say the other devices need to be turned on or it wont find them, when it finishes searching it will show all it finds, in the list (it will show anything next door or close outside as well) you need to pick out the printer, I have no idea what it will show as, but if not obvious, use a process of elimination ignoring ones obviously not what you want. Once you have isolated the printer click on it and proceed to the next step, this may mean clicking Next, or it may move on when you click on it, but whatever you need to confirm thats the device to move onto the next step, now either doing that will start this next bit, or some other more obvious option will come up it depends on the dongle, but you are looking for an option to Pair the devices, this will send a signal to the other devoice, it will ask for a code, or sometimes it gives you a code to enter in the other device, but when the other device is unmanned it usually uses a default security code of 0000 (4 zero's), but I have no idea what yours will do here. I have never connected a printer this way, so don't know what to expect, if it has a display and some kind of keypad, then keep an eye on it for any messages about the connection and accept as needed, otherwise it should all be dealt with on the PC, now keep you're eyes open when doing the pairing, you need to look for a check box that says something like Allow Permanent Access for this device, you need to put a tick in the box, without this you will have to perform some of these steps again before you can send, checking the box means you should be able to send a file to the printer via right clicking it, hope this gives you enough info to get this sorted.

Hi 8210GUY First, I may not have been clear enough, both my laptops are fitted with internal Bluetooth devices so no dongles and they are both working wirelessly already with the router for internet. I will however be using a dongle on the printer. I did however plug the dongle into both laptops as neither had any bluetooth icons in Control Panel, or in System Devices, nor had a My Bluetooth Place icon on the desktops. Putting the dongle in did cause the loading of bluetooth entries in control panel, device manager and also placed an icon in task bar, it has not put any icons on desktop however. Clicking on the taskbar icon and selecting add new device, then getting it to do a search for bluetooth devices, produced a message saying it could find no bluetooth devices, even though I would expect it to find the other laptop and the router at least, so something is not right to start with. However, I now have a secondary problem, that in all this fiddling when I now try to print by my usual USB cable on the machine I have been fiddling with, I cannot and get a message saying 'printer not responding'. I swapped the usb cable to the 2nd machine and it works absolutely fine, so it is not the printer but must be a setting fault on the machine i have fiddled with. I cannot see any yellow exclamation marks in Device Manager indicating any faults. My Cannon MP610 is still set as the default printer and is online. So something has got stuffed up and I guess I will need to fix it before moving forward, however have tried all I can so will now need help with this! Oh dear, not one problem but two! bar457

Hi, well first thing I would suggest is confirming the PC's do actually have bluetooth in them, I have seen numerous laptops lately, and they all appear to have bluetooth, they even have it in the control panel, yet they do not actually have it installed, spent many a frustrating hour trying to figure these ones out, and the closest I have come to an answer is they are generic, basically being mass produced, they set all units up the same way, BUT, the actual hardware for the bluetooth to work is only installed when the unit is at the higher end of the model range, so I fear you're actual system does not actually have it installed, the fact adding the dongle getting the reaction it did tends to support this. We really need to prove the PC for sure, and everything I've heard suggests there is no bluetooth on it, so check in the device manager again, I appreciate you said there are no errors showing, but look down the list of devices and find any entry for bluetooth, I fear there wont be, then click on View, then select Show hidden devices, see if this shows more, then click on Action, then select Scan for hardware changes, my guess is bluetooth still wont be showing. The last thing to try is go to the makers site, then find you're PC, and download\install any bluetooth drivers available for that system, if during the install it gives errors saying no device found, insert device or the like, then again this confirms my suspicion of the PC not actually having the physical hardware required for this, if this is so then you need to get the hardware for the PC as well. As to the printer, I can only guess something upset it during all this as you said, my first thought would be to check it's still shown as the default printer, but you say it is showing it is, not sure I'm smart enough to figure out exactly whats going on, and be able to rectify it, but the simplest options IMHO are to start afresh, easiest is try system restore, select a point prior to starting work on the bluetooth, with luck that will put it right. Alternately go into the device manager, expand the entry for the printer by clicking on the + next to it, right click on the printer and select uninstall, then reboot and once the system is loaded, connect the printer again, allow the wizard to auto install it, the system already has the drivers, you have not removed these by doing this, and then with luck and a prevailing wind it will reset the paths and the printer will work fine again, hope something here helps.

Hi 8210GUY I re-installed the printer driver and that fixed the settings so it is working fine via USB cable again now. I can confirm both computers do have internal Bluetooth adapters fitted and working. The top of the range Compaq nx8220 has an intergrated HP bluetooth module of the WIDCOMM type and the Toshiba has an ISSC Bluetooth EDR adapter, both show up in device manager as installed and working properly. Also please note that both laptops are already connected by bluetooth to the internet router and have been working fine for a couple of years now, so this confirms both bluetooths are already working. However when I get either of them to search for wireless devices available under the add new device wizard, neither machine finds any devices at all, not even the other computer or the router. This does seem odd. Just to confirm again, my Cannon MP610 printer does not have an internal bluetooth adapter so I am using a generic dongle on that and imagin I will need to get the computers to send data to that printer (maybe a manual setting). So it seems I need to resolve why neither computers find any devices in their searches. bar457

Hi, glad the reinstall sorted the printer issue, was pretty sure it would, most times the paths get upset, and the system loses track on where things are, thats my theory anyway.
As to the bluetooth, it's good you have confirmed them on the PC's, had to ask to avoid chasing ghosts lol, now the reason why you can't connect is very simple, but how to rectify it may not be, had you done\seen any research that suggested what you are trying to do would work ?

Assuming you have then the answer will lie in there, but in simple terms for bluetooth to find other devices they need to be on, AND, discoverable (visible to all) in the settings before anything else can see them, this is a security feature of bluetooth to minimise your risk of unwanted contact on your device, this comes under the heading of Blue Jacking, big name celeb's have had they're address books copied and posted on the web and the like, you may recall such story's.

Anyway, I can tell you what needs to be done, but I can't tell you how to, not without further info which neither of us have at this stage, if it were a mobile or any other device I would tell you to make sure it's visible (if applicable), eg like a mobile phone, but this wont apply here I suspect, because you have no accessible menu's to enter on the remote dongle (I assume you don't ?), now if this were like a headset for use with a mobile, I would tell you to start the device in pairing mode, then tell the system to search for devices, it would then see it as it would be transmitting, then you could enter the default pin 0000 (4 zero's) to complete the pairing, BUT, because it is a dongle, I fear it wont have a pairing mode.

So that is what you need to do, you need to set the dongle in pairing mode to be seen, this can only happen one of two ways, either you can access a menu to enable this, so I don't know if you're printer has any kind of display where you could access such a menu ?

The only other way, at least that I know of, is if it has a power button, like you would have on a headset, if it does then you should have instructions on what\how to press, it varies from each device, often a combination of the power button and another button, or holding the power button for x period of time (say 10 seconds) to start the pairing mode, the LED on the device usually glows steady rather than blinking when it's in pairing mode, for headsets at least.

Now all that said, I have searched the printer spec, and they do indeed say it is bluetooth capable, BUT, they specify a specific device to do this:-

Bluetooth Ver1.2¹ (with optional Bluetooth Unit BU-20)

So, my guess is that if the generic device will not work, then you would need to get the specific device they say will work with this printer, sorry I can't give an exact solution to this, but hopefully my generic explanations, along with what you see in front of you will be enough for you to get this resolved one way or the other, hope it helps.

Yes I was aware of the Cannon dongle, BU30 for my printer, which is very expensive at around £40 to buy, so it is half the price I paid for the whole printer. The BU30 brings up a menu on the printer to allow pairing etc. If I Google the question, will the MP610 printer work with a generic dongle, I can read reports that some people have just plugged in a cheap generic dongle from ebay and have been able to just send data to the printer from the computer and it prints. Someone sent their document to the printer using settings on the computer to select where it should be sent to , selected the cannon printer, and then send it to that and it printed the document. It seems where some people have tried the generic dongle it has worked, without needing to use the printer menu which the BU30 would display. I guess it works in the same way that you can use a dongle in other devices including computers which do not have internal bluetooth capability. I have bought a generic dongle at my IT store for just a few pounds and when plugged in it shows a continuous light on the dongle. With respect to my computers, I have some concerns, even though they are working with their internal bluetooth already. Some of this may not be as I originally stated in my earlier report as I have now inspected it more closely. Firstly, when I started this project, I had no bluetooth icons in control panel, in the task bar, in device manager, or on the desktop of either computer. By chance I plugged my generic dongle into the computer USB and it brought up an icon in control panel, in device manager, and temporarily one in task bar, but never one on desktop (My Computer Places). I understand this forces windows to install some general bluetooth software. I now see that some of the functions of these icons only appear to work when the generic dongle is left inserted, so it seems they may not be operative with the internal bluetooth device. I believe this may actually be part of the real problem. In device manager on the HP machine, it shows my internal bluetooth device, however in the control panel bluetooth icon it shows what must be the generic dongle (ISSC - EDR adapter). If I open, show bluetooth devices, from the taskbar icon and select the options tab, there are check boxes to allow Discovery by other devices and Connections, if I check these and try to apply when the generic dongle is not plugged in, I get an error message saying that the settings on this page have not been saved. If I plug in the dongle then it will save and apply these settings. Also occasionly I can see that the bluetooth icon in taskbar is not always there and I have to plug the dongle back in to get it to re-appear. In device manager on the Toshiba computer I have discovered that there is actually no bluetooth device entry showing at all until I plug in the generic dongle! It then shows what I now believe is the generic dongle (ISSC) and not the internal Toshiba bluetooth. It also shows this (ISSC) in the control panel bluetooth icon, so it is not showing the internal device anywhere on this machine. This machine also will not allow the Discovery and Connections check boxes to be applied unless the generic dongle is plugged in. I am afraid that the use of the dongle in the computer has confused things a bit, but on the other hand it has now shown up what may be perhaps the core of the problem. I do not think the proper XP displays for bluetooth are present in device manager, taskbar, control panel and desktop as was the original case when I started this project. I think plugging in the dongle has instead forced the display of some windows icons/software which are associated with general external bluetooth devices and only works with them when they are plugged in. I don't know if any of this makes sense. I do not understand why the original XP bluetooth settings were not present (as my bluetooth was already running for internet), but upon Googling this, this does seem to be a widespread situation with many users and I have not so far been able to trace any posted workable solutions to installing these entries. MS postings say that installing XP - SP2 should have fixed it, but reports say not, and I have SP2 and SP3 installed. I think the concentration should be on solving my MS bluetooth entries issue before knowing if the generic printer dongle will work. bar457

Well again hearing that strikes me as there is no bluetooth on the PC(s), but you say you have had bluetooth working on both systems prior to touching the dongle ? This is certainly a crazy one, but I agree with proving the PC(s) bluetooth's are working correctly, without this we are chasing ghosts, what I suggest is to download the drivers for each bluetooth device, save them to the desktop on each system for ease of finding, then go into the device manager, expand the bluetooth entries and right click on them, then select uninstall, refuse any reboot prompts, then uninstall the software, use Revo and delete all remnants, run some junk filers cleaners such as CCleaner etc, now reboot. Once back to the desktop close any wizards about new devices, when fully loaded pause\exit all real time protection, then install the software, reboot if needed and see if it starts behaving, and don't forget to enable all protection again, a reboot will do this if thats easier for you. See if thats enough to get the PC's working, then we can move on, but when you were searching about this, did any places say about a specific dongle as being the one known to work perhaps ?

I have been connected by bluetooth to my router and the internet for 2 years on the HP machine and 1 year on the Toshiba, this has been my only means of connection throughout and indeed I have been talking to you via bluetooth on both machines. I have never left the dongle in or run with it. So avoiding ghosts as you say, my bluetooth has and is working fine on both machines.
However, there have never been any of the icons etc present, and of course I have never needed to look for them or use them before as making the internet connection is done through Network Connections. I can see through the many blogs I have been reading that there are many people who are running bluetooth but do not have the Windows XP icons etc present, as I do not, but I have not found a solution to getting them installed. This particular issue seems to be related to Windows and not the internal bluetooth device itself, so I am loath to start messing with the device drivers for fear of losing my connection.

On the Toshiba, there are no entries for bluetooth devices in Device Manager (except when I plug in the dongle they appear for that and disappear when I remove it) so I cannot see details of the internal bluetooth adapter installed.
On the HP there were no entries in Device Manager until I plugged in the dongle, but they then appeared and have remained since and do show only the internal device details.
Yes this is all very odd, but judging by all the blogs, it is experienced by many people. However, as we agree, until I can get this part fixed we cannot see where we are going with linking the printer.

Here is the link to one of the reports I read saying a generic dongle worked in the Cannon MP610 :-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-revi…ostRecentReview

are you sure you've been connected to your router by bluetooth and not the normal wireless g wifi connection most people use?
what is the make/model of your router because i must admit i don't think i've ever seen a bluetooth router.

leave the bluetooth dongle out of your laptops,

find out where to turn the bluetooth on/off(not the wireless g wifi connection) on both laptops, make sure it's on
pinched from link here:- http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi…10143459AAoyh8a

Typically there are a few ways to turn off bluetooth. One option is to press Fn + F2 while in Windows to cycle through various Wi-Fi/Bluetooth settings (for example pressing this a few times will allow you to have both off, both on, or just Bluetooth off). The screen will display what is happening each time Fn + F2 is pressed.
Another method to disable Bluetooth is by going into the BIOS. Pressing F2 at the Dell screen (when the system first powers on) will allow you to enter the BIOS. There should be a setting to turn the Bluetooth off. Unfortunately since I am not sure which model notebook you have I will not be able to guide you further in the BIOS.

bios might be a good place to look and see if you do have bluetooth in those laptops too, judging by that reply.

anyway find another bluetooth device, mobile phone for example and see if the laptops can find it, or the phone find the laptops.

Hi Terry

You have nailed it, I assumed that internet wireless connections were by bluetooth, but I can see now that they are Wifi which I now appreciate is something different.
Both my laptops are therefore using Wifi to the router, so that gives us a new direction. My apologies for my obvious lack of knowledge and the mis-direction previously.

I have checked online specifications for both my machines, the HP nx8220 does have integrated bluetooth and the Toshiba Sat Pro L100 does not. So that explains why only the HP shows an entry for bluetooth in Device Manager. So let's put the Toshiba aside and work on the HP.

The HP details I gave are correct for that machine and the bluetooth is switched on by one switch which operates both the Wireless LAN and Bluetooth together, That is switched on with it's indicator lamp lit and a confirmation in Device Manager - hardware tab, that the bluetooth adapter is enabled and working correctly. Device Manager also shows a WIDCOMM driver for the WIDCOMM adapter, but I am now wondering if it is configured with Windows XP correctly. I say this because I did have a new hard drive installed at a dealer involving a reload of XP Pro SP3. He will not have re-installed a WIDCOMM driver over this and it is possible that it has therefore not re-configured the XP bluetooth settings. So I think I need to find a WIDCOMM driver to download.

I have looked on the Broadcom.com download site and there is only one driver available for the WIDCOMM bluetooth devices, so I assume this must be suitable for all their versions. The only thing I queery is that my adapter is to the older 1.2 standard and the available driver is to the newer 2.0 standard, but as a 2.0 rated device usually works in 1.2 rated situations, it seems likely that the 2.0 driver accomodates both. It also looks like it covers all types of bluetooth devices and so I guess it is a universal driver. It is available at:
http://www.broadcom.com/support/bluetooth/update.php

I am hoping that installing this driver will configure all of the bluetooth settings that appear to be missing on my machine. Does this make a bit more sense?

bar457

Thanks for spotting an obvious oversight terry1966, I knew something sounded wrong, but was so tied up thinking about the bluetooth side I didn't even consider the Wi-Fi lol. Now 2 factors with bluetooth are distance, and software, the average dongles are probably a 10m working distance max, but you can get them going up to 250m that I've seen, so see how close the printer is, and take note of electrical activity near it as these can stop the dongle working in the worst case. The next thing is software, I couldn't swear to it, but I suspect the reason you only get shortcuts when plugging the extra dongle in in because it needs further software to enable those functions, so make sure all printer software is installed if it's not been done yet, can't think of any other suggestion ATM, eyes are closing on me, been a very long week, but will keep track and try and find some better info when I can keep my eyes open lol.

Hi Guys Progress! I have located and downloaded from the HP Support site a complete package for the Integrated Bluetooth adapter fitted to my machine. It is a massive comprehensive package of almost 100 Mb covering everything you could ever shake a stick at and then more! All of the icons and entries that were missing are now present. I could see that some of these folders had previously been present on my 'c' drive but clearly were no longer complete/installed/operational. I think this confims my recent suspicion that this had probably been lost during the previous replacement of the hard drive and reload of Windows. Something worth remembering for bluetooth machines if they have had a Windows reload - the bluetooth software needs reloading over the top. I can't help wondering what else might need loading back in on my machine? I will now set about seeing if I can get a bluetooth connection to work using the generic dongle in the printer and let you know how I am getting on.

if it doesn't work in the printer you can always put the dongle into the other laptop and see if you can connect both together through bluetooth. at least then you can say for certain the built in bluetooth works fine on the laptop, now you have the correct drivers for that laptops bluetooth device i think you'll get it working now tho.

Unfortunately I have still not been able to get the computer to find the printer or send anything to it, however the dongle is now installed in the Toshiba laptop and both machines find each other so it looks as though the printer will only work with the Cannon dongle which I will not be buying at their extortionate prices. I don't know how others say they have made generic dongles work in the MP610 printer. At least I have the two laptops linking. So all I can say to you both is many, many thanks for all of your help, it is so appreciated. kindest regards Barry (bar457)