Mystery: Thinkpad's bluetooth range suddenly reduced

Tl;dr: My Thinkpad's Bluetooth broadcast range suddenly dropped to a mere few feet. Afaik it's not about the headset, not about the drivers and not about the antennas.
Hello, I was hoping somebody could help me with a problem that has left me completely puzzled.
I have a Thinkpad S531 which has been upgraded with Intel centrino N 2230 wireless card - the rig has worked flawlessly for more than a year. I often use a wireless Bluetooth headset to listen to music, not wanting to annoy my neighbours.
Recently however the range of Bluetooth dropped dramatically. I can still connect and pair devices no problem - and the headset functions if I sit in front of the notebook - but should I step a few feet away from the audio starts breaking and dropping. (Previously the Bluetooth had range in my entire apartment.)
So far I have tried..
- resetting and recharging the headset, they work perfectly with my phone and SO's thinkpad
-uninstalling and reinstalling drivers
-reinstalling Win7 (was overdue anyway)
-popping open the maintenance cover to see if any antenna wire has come loose (unlikely as Wi-Fi performance remains unchanged)
All in all I have no more ideas. What could cause the range to be reduced so suddenly and decisively, without affecting other wireless performance?
Thanks in advance!

More serious than first appeared. There appears to be no help available here for issues like this because the Intel mac and Leopard is such a massive disaster the help supply side is tied up. Jobs built the Mac; Jobs wrecked the Mac; mixed cursed be the name of Jobs.

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Mystery: Thinkpad's bluetooth range suddenly reduced

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