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Dave and the team discuss Bill Gates and Ai, Ai and contract negotiation, a MagSafe style Qi standard, and more.
Joe in Hazleton, Pennsylvania asked: “I bet you’ve never had a question like this before. I have a Bluetooth dongle jammed into one of the USB ports on my computer. With the end broken off and jammed inside the middle of the three ports. The port above and below both still work but I can’t get the dongle out and I’m afraid I’ll break all the ports if I pull too hard. Is there a way I could still have Bluetooth on this old desktop if I buy another dongle and put it in another port?”
Joe, it depends on the state of the one that is stuck in the port.
Windows will only allow one bluetooth device at a time, the second one will be recognized but if you look at your device manager it will be disabled and labeled as a conflicting device.
If your current one is broken and not recognized at all, then it probably wont be a problem. If it IS recognized as a bluetooth dongle and you are able to disable it in the device manager before you set up the new one, there are no guarantees but you will probably be able to use the second one.
If this is an old desktop, you may be able to remove the cover where those ports are and get more direct access, if you want to remove the old dongle and get access to an extra port that you may be able to use for other purposes.
The other reason to try to remove it, if you can is that if the device is broken it could cause a short and theres no reason to take the chance if its possible to remove it.
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