Mac Pro USB bluetooth dongle install?

Used to be that the only bluetooth USB dongle that worked or at least got the official nod from Apple was the D-Link DBT-120. Not sure these days under Lion.

If you don't have bluetooth showing up in Sys Prefs then sounds like your dongle does not have drivers to work.

You might want to do a search on bluetooth dongle to see if any of this information has been updated. I have had the DBT-120 since I bought my Mac Pro in 2008 and it has worked great with all my accessories.

I use a IOGear GBU521 on my 2010 macpro. No drivers are needed for any of these usb dongles. Since my mac pro has built in blue tooth (it $ucks, hence the dongle) I of course have the bluetooth and bluetooth mouse system preferences.

I suspect that a machine with no bluetooth hardeware is the reason the system preferences do not appear. You could try looking in /System/Library/PreferencePanes and see if the Bluetooth.prefPane was even installed. If it is there try double clicking it to see if it appears and you can pair using it.

There are no 3rd party drivers needed because they are already built into the OS. If you have an working example of this BT dongle working then obviously the OP has another issue at play.

My 2007 MP did not come with built in BT but the D-Link has worked from day 1 just by plugging it in.

Sounds like some more diagnostics are called for.

Sorry, I meant the GBU421. Got it initially as a cheap ($9 at the time holiday sale) experiment. I guess the DBT-120 would have been the second choice if the GBU421 hadn't worked. But it did so I never tried any others.

Note, I plug the dongle into the back of my 27" monitor so that it's within a 1'-2' of my mouse so there is no problems with the mouse. But with this dongle, and I assume any other (which is why I never tried any other), when I sleep my machine (I never shut down) the power goes off on the monitor and computer (which goes into a standby mode). This means no power on the dongle. So you cannot wake up your machine using with BT devices. I have a wired keyboard so I just hit a key on it to wake my machine up.

Another small "quirk" with the dongle. Maybe about 15% to 25% of the time the mouse will not immediately re-pair. Trackpad almost always does. So when that happens I need to flip the mouse power switch to "get the machine's attention". Then it re-pair shortly after. I've just learned to live with this "quirk". I assume other dongles may behave the same under these conditions. Interesting enough, the re-pair is immediate when rebooting.

I have the same computer (MacPro1,1) the same Bluetooth adapter (Iogear, GBU521), and the same problem. My computer won't recognize the Bluetooth when the adapters are plugged into a USB port.

Did you ever get an adapter to work? I've tried the Iogear GBU521 and the Targus ACB10US1, both are Bluetooth 4.0 adapters. I've read that the Bluetooth 2.0 adapters work. I'm wondering if the age of my computer and my OS is preventing the Bluetooth 4.0 from working. Would a Bluetooth 2.0 adapter work? I can't update my OS 10.6.8 to 10.8 because my computer is too old.

Mac Pro (MacPro1,1)

--No Bluetooth card

OS 10.6.8

Thanks for any help,

Lisa

How about "Princeton PTM-UBT7"?

It's a Bluetooth Version4.0 + EDR/LE (Low Energy) 、Version3.0 + EDR, works under Mac OSX 10.4 to 10.7

Or "Buffalo BSHBD04BK" which works under Mac OSX 10.4.7 or later.

-- kaz-k

I solved my Bluetooth problem. Bluetooth 4.0 won't work, but 2.1 will. I ordered the StarTech.com "USB to Bluetooth 2.1 Adapter-Class 1," part # USBBT1EDR2. I plugged it in to a USB port, it appeared on my desktop, I double-clicked it, and it found my Magic Mouse. I then went to my System Preferences/Hardware/Mouse and finished setting it up. No drivers required, pretty much plug and play. The Bluetooth 4.0 adapters wouldn't show up on my desktop, which prevented me from setting up Bluetooth.

-Lisa

I to have the same question does your problem solved "/System/Library/PreferencePanes" for IOGEAR Bluetooth 4.0 USB micro adapter GBU521.