I have a gateway laptop running XP. I can have the laptop and my 8300 recognize eachother but then the 8300 asks for the laptops numeric or alpha numeric key. The blutetooth software on the laptop is not offering up a key.

Thoughts

Sometimes it is 0000 or 00000.

if you cant guess the key, delete the device profile in your laptop by right clicking the bluetooth icon in the tray and going to "show bluetooth devices".

re-add the phone by making it discoverable, and then go thru the authentication procedure all over again, this time choosing your own passkey.

Most every device uses 0000 for the BT device pairing key.