Bluetooth randomly shuts down

Factual Questions
1

I have a Lenovo laptop, IdeaPad S145, using Win-10. I use a Bluetooth mouse and also use Bluetooth to connect to my Stereo tuner for better sound. Randomly, the Bluetooth and I have only one way to get it back, which is to reboot. But not any kind of reboot. If I go to the power buttotn and hit restart, it restarts without turning the Bluetooth back on. Ditto if I press Shut Down, wait 10 seconds and then restart. But if I do an emergency shutdown (hold the power button for 5 or 10 seconds), wait 10 seconds and they power up the computer reboots and turns the Bluetooth on.

By the way if I use settings, it insists that the mouse and tuner are connected, but they are not working. Does anyone have any idea what is going on and whether there is an easier cure?

2

When you do the Windows [restart] or [shut down] followed by starting normally, as you saying the Bluetooth doesn’t come on automatically, or are you saying that when you go to the Bluetooth control panel / Settings screen you can’t turn it on at all; it simply won’t turn on? Does it look turned on, e.g. slider goes to the active color, or it it stuck grayed out or in the off position? If it does appear to turn on, how are you deciding that it’s actually not? Just by the mouse not working or is there other evidence?

When you say Settings show the mouse and speaker are connected, is this after Bluetooth just died, or is this after one of the normal restarts that don’t actually bring Bluetooth back?

Also, do both mouse and speakers always fail simultaneously, or can it ever be just one or the other. I’m considering the possibility that your Bluetooth isn’t actually shutting down, but rather is doing something to blink off for a bit, which causes the mouse or speakers to lose their connection and they don’t notice when it comes back. What happens if, after Bluetooth seems to shut down, you power-cycle the mouse, speakers, or both. Does that cause a reconnection or does nothing happen?

At the risk of a silly question, have you tried deleting the mouse and speakers from the Bluetooth device list then re-pairing them?


I have had vaguely similar situations with other hardware on other PCs over the years. Where only an extra-thorough reboot got stuff going again. The usual culprit is a shit device driver and/or shit device that is prone to crashing into a state where only a full hardware reset unjams whatever is fouled up. Unfortunately, drivers are provided by the device manufacturer and are frequently not well-maintained.

Trying to check for updated drivers from Lenovo via their website, or Windows update, or any Lenovo-branded maintenance app that may have come with the laptop are your best bets. If that comes up empty, the next most likely problem is hardware, which probably means replacing the laptop if you really, really need built-in Bluetooth; something like built-in Bluetooth is generally not easy / practical to fix.

If it gets that far that you’re considering replacing the laptop, something else you can consider is disabling the built-in Bluetooth features and buying a separate Bluetooth transceiver. They can be had for cheap. Amazon.com : usb bluetooth adapter for pc. Assuming you have an available USB port on your laptop you can dedicate to this use. I had an older laptop that came out just before built-in Bluetooth became universal. I ran for years with one of these teeny Bluetooth adapters; worked great.

That’s bypassing your problem rather than fixing it, but for sure $15-20 is a lot better than $500-1000 for a laptop. Also far less hassle to move into.

3

When the BT stops working, the settings shows both the mouse and tuner connected. But neither the mouse nor the casting to the tuner actually works. Normally, when I reboot (or even just wake up from sleep the tuner turns on with its blue light blinking, but not when I do either of the soft reboots. When I use the emergency turn off and then reboot, the tuner blue light does turn on (and, if I am listening to the radio, interrupts the program) and the mouse activates immediately.

I suspect that either the BT or the software (which I have updated, although not recently) is flawed. I suppose I could get a plug-in BT (there are a couple unused USB ports) but it means more wires I have to contend with. I guess I will have to live with the emergency shutdown/reboot.

When the machine was still under warranty, I actually shipped it back to LeNovo the first time it happened, before I discovered the workaround. I don’t know what they did, but it came back working. Then one day I randomly used the emergency shutdown and discovered it came back working and I’ve done that ever since. The thing is you are not supposed to use that shutdown unless the computer is frozen and cannot be shutdown in software.

4

There would be no wires. The BT adaptor is just a USB plug with a small head on it. Just barely big enough to get a fingertip grip on; much smaller than a USB “thumbdrive”. Take a look at the Amazon link I provided if you haven’t already.

Stick the USB plug in a port once, do the driver installation and configuration step, and be done with it. No wires, no fussing, just BT that works. And disable to built-in BT adaptor of course.

5

Are you sure your device can support more than one bluetooth connection at a time? Go to the Bluetooth settings. If your device supports Dual Audio or Multi-Device Connection, you should see an option to enable this feature

6

Oh yes; I do it all the time, casting the sound to the tuner and using the mouse at the same time. Two days ago, some atmospheric disturbance made the CBC unlistenable and I just went to their web site, loaded their current programming and went ahead with all my usual browsing and so on.