Bluetooth network audio woes.

Please excuse the cross post.

I have two bluetooth dongles, one set up on my desktop upstairs, the other
on my lapop. I have just bought a new laptop (Aries Precision 1855 XP, AMD
XP-M 1800mhz, 512 mb ram) to replace my old lappy (Thinkpad 1200i, Win 2000,
500mhz, 130mb ram).

I also have a wired lan between my desktop (AMD 2000mhz, 512 ram, Win XP)
and bf's pc (running Win 2000, AMD 2.2mhz, 256 ram- two ethernet cards
connection these machines). My desktop is the main machine which connects to
the net, the connections (bluetooth and lan) are bridged, we can all share
the internet connection, and we all see each others files. Result.

I stream mp3s over bluetooth to my laptop (as I did with the older one), and
have my desktop set up in system performance options to give greater
priority to system cache (before I had it set to give priority to programs
and the problem I'm about to explain was much much worse).

Occasionally the old lappy would get a sticky fit if playing audio files
over the network and the audio would drop out or stall, though usually if I
was using the thing at the time it was ok (I put this down to the speedstep
technology of the processor slowing down when it thought it wasn't needed).
The new lappy does this much more, especially if playing files from my
desktop (bf's pooter files seem to be ok so far, but I wouldn't hold my
breath). It has a quicker processor and more ram, so - what gives ? It
doesn't seem to do it with any regularity, just any time at all but it is
worse when I am using the bluetooth connection for other things, like web
browsing - but it doesn't do it all the time. Doesn't matter what mp3 player
I'm using (I have three and it does it with all of them).

Obviously this is a network traffic issue but what makes me wonder is that
it didn't used to be so bad on the old lappy, which was much less powerful.
So - what can I do to this one to help it cope ? I can't see that it needs
more ram surely ?

I know this is abit of a shot in the dark and quite a nebulous problem but
any help would be appreciated. Buying a proper wireless system isn't an
option btw !


Rachael