Good morning everyone. I bought the HP 550 notebook because I expected there would be no trouble with the hardware under Linux. Unfortunately, it turns out there are at least two variants - one with an intel-based integrated wireless module (wifi+bluetooth) and another one with a broadcom-based module. Bluetooth is reported to work out-of-the-box on the first variant, however, it isn't visible at all on the variant which I have.

I tried several distributions (Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, openSuse, Ubuntu) and several kernels (2.6.22, 2.6.24, 2.6.26, 2.6.27, 2.6.28), I tried to enable the device by sending 'echo 1' to some files in /sys and /proc which seemed to be related to the device (wifi+bt module), however, there don't seem to be any files related directly to bluetooth. Situation is the same with any of the above kernels in any of the above distributions.

Do any of you have the HP 550 variant with broadcom wireless module or a similar model? If so, did you manage to make bluetooth work under Linux, and how? Thank you very much.

here's list of my hardware. bluetooth is nowhere to be seen..

# dmesg |grep Blu
Bluetooth: Core ver 2.13
Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
Bluetooth: L2CAP ver 2.11
Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.10

# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile GME965/GLE960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GME965/GLE960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GME965/GLE960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82562GT 10/100 Network Connection (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
10:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)

# lsusb
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

# lsmod |grep blu
bluetooth 66596 4 rfcomm,l2cap

# hciconfig -a
# hciconfig hci0 up
Can't get device info: No such device
# hcitool dev
Devices:
# hcitool scan
Device is not available: No such device

I also tried booting with parameters noapic, nolapic, acpi=nopnp and acpi=off, respectively. None of that helped.

Nobody knows? I also tried to ask here: http://www.linlap.com/wiki/hp+550

I had a similar problem too with HP , so i just checked my bluetooth hardware , it had been disconnected from the slot ..
So consult any service center , or if u have confidence try to peep into that hardware .

Thanks, I found several other references to the bluetooth module being badly connected to the slot in some HP models. I looked under the hard drive cover, I even unplugged the hard drive, I also looked under the cover of the wireless card, but I didn't find the cable of the bluetooth adapter or the slot. I'm afraid to disassemble the notebook any further Anyway, inside it looks quite different from the models on which this problem was reported to exist; the wireless module is to the right side of the hard drive, when looking from such a point of view that the battery is up, while on the images I've seen it's been to the left side Btw, I also tried a module 'hp-wmi' which is supposed to enable the wireless on/off button, but nothing changed.

Frm ur thread it seems to be of hardware error for the time being , i couldnt find any other serious thing , have u tried if bluetooth working in any other OS any other Linux distros or even try it in Windows , if any of the thing doesnt work , then i'm sure its ur hardware problem

I'm still not convinced it's a hw problem, 'cause it's a model different from the ones on which this thing used to occur. Of course, I tried several distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuse, Archlinux, Gentoo) and several kernels (2.6.24, 2.6.26, 2.6.27, 2.6.28), and it's the same everywhere. I even tried FreeBSD, it also only sees the wifi and not the bluetooth. Does MS Windows have a live CD which I could use to test the hw? I haven't used it since win98.