Hi. I have some questions about my computer. I have been wanting to and planning to ask about these things for a while but I keep getting too caught up in providing details so I never end up posting so please bear with me with this ham-fisted attempt to ask. I’m afraid it’ll sound like a 5-year old but I need to find out what to do.
I can not get Bluetooth (BT) to work on my computer. It’s a custom-built Windows 10 Pro desktop PC. There was no BT built in so I bought a AX100 Bluetooth adapter dongle to do the job. When I try to install it my machine cannot find the BT “radio” so it doesn’t work. Can anyone help with setting this thing up? Thank you in advance.
I wear Bluetooth enabled hearing aids. This really helps sound quality from, for example, songs or phone calls on my phone because BT puts the sound directly in my hearing aids.
So I decided I want the sounds from my desktop computer to go directly to my hearing aids as well. My computer was custom built without Bluetooth capability so I bought an AX1800 – Bluetooth adapter, a USB dongle, to transmit the audio over Bluetooth. But I can’t for the life of me figure out how to set it up. I installed the device (AX1800) and the drivers but everything I read online tells me I have to “turn on BT” on my computer. I can’t seem to do that. I’m hoping someone here can help me with this. It’s been frustrating me for months as I periodically try to read all up on it and get it working but it seems there is some fundamental thing I’m not doing,
I go to “Bluetooth & other devices” in Settings and click on “add Bluetooth or other device” then a black message comes up that says “Add a device - choose the kind of device you want to add”. I click on Berluetooth then it says “Couldn’t connect – Here are some things to try”. It’s first suggestion is “On this Windows device, turn on Bluetooth” but I don’t see anywhere that I can just “turn on” Bluetooth.
Windows leads me to some “trouble shooter” which ends up searching for “Bluetooth Radio” which it says it cannot detect. It looks some more, can’t fins it and says to do a “full shutdown” (cold reboot). I did the cold reboot, went back to Bluetooth settings and still nothing.
There is another thing tat’s a secondary question but it could be involved here so I’ll mention it now. What’s the deal with updated BIOS? Intuitively I’d think you should keep it fairly up to date, downloaded new versions periodically. But, a lot of things I read online say “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Or IOW, don’t ever update your BIOS as long as things are working—only consider it if something is not working and you’ve tried everything else.
This is not a satisfying answer to me. Yes, I’m scared to death to update BIOS because of the slim chance of screwing everything up and bricking your motherboard. OTOH, I’d like to take advantage of whatever a new BIOS version might give me. It’s just not intuitive to me to not update something regularly. I have similar questions about updating my MoBo’s firmware.
I ask about it at this point because it seems like a BIOS update might fix this problem of no Bluetooth radio.
Can you take some screenshots of the steps you’re taking?
Also, what is the make and model of your Bluetooth adapter? AX1800 is a wifi standard, not a model name. It’s possible your adapter does both Bluetooth and WIFI, but knowing the make and model will help.
Did it come with any antennas that you need to screw on? They often look like cable TV coax connectors.
And don’t worry about the BIOS at all. Unless you’re experiencing some particular kinds of issues (usually system stability or heat related) or are a PC gamer, it won’t do you any good. It’s very unlikely to have anything to do with your Bluetooth issue since you’re using a USB adapter anyway.
I have similar problems getting a BT dongle to work on my laptop…
When the dongle is not plugged in, in PC Settings | Devices (Bluetooth, Printers, Mouse), i see this …
The second image show that Windows thinks BT is working. Does the computer not show up if you use a BT-capable device like a smartphone or tablet to scan for BT devices?
I will admit that BT pairing works differently in Windows 10 than it does for other OSs.
If I may add a question to increase basic understanding of Bluetooth… Does it work in both directions?
Say I enable BT on my phone and my laptop. Are they both transmitting and receiving? Could I “send” data from my phone’s cellular signal to my laptop via BT? At the same time, could I send a file from my laptop to my phone?
It’s bidirectional if the connection profile allows it.
The connection profile is what decides what kind of bluetooth device a host sees. A speaker or headset? Does the headset also have a microphone? (That would make the data exchange bidirectional.)
You can use a BT connection to tether a computer to a smartphone hotspot, which is definitely a bidirectional profile.
A smartphone’s or tablet’s BT profile can be very complex.
Windows is mistaken !
It’s not showing up in a smart phone’s BT settings, and does not
find any new BT devices.
It’s not a huge problem. My laptop is about 15 years old and is not able to
update to windows 11 so i’m going to have to upgrade soon anyway.
I’ve never had to troubleshoot a BT tether, so I don’t have any concrete advice.
If I were in that position, it would be a typical troubleshooting process, which frankly, I can’t describe because I pretty much fall into a trance and when I come out of it the problem is either fixed or demonstrably unfixable.
I think the main problem might be that my “Bluetooth radio” is not working (or even present?). I think if I could find a way to turn that on then the USB WiFi/Bluetooth adapter would be ok.
I am so, so, frustrated with this. That’s mostly because I feel that I, plus a ton of Google searches, should be able to figure this out on my own but I can’t and that bugs me.
How does one turn on Bluetooth radio? I’ve tried so many things that Google preached to me but I don’t feel I’m even close.
Sorry, I don’t have anything in front of me to look on to say exactly how to do things, but here are some hints:
Look in Device Manager, and see if a Bluetooth adapter shows up there. How exactly you get to Device Manager can vary across versions of Windows, but I think in 10 you can right click on the start menu, and it is there. If not, that at least should be something you can find on Google.
Once you get to Device Manager it will list a bunch of stuff. Much of it will be reasonably self descriptive, others not at all. What you’re looking for is anything that says “unknown” or some synonym. If so, then that means you have a device with no drivers for Windows. It may be your Bluetooth adapter. Also look for anything that says Bluetooth, and then you can right click (I think) on that and see if there is anything interesting, like preferences or settings.
You can also remove the dongle, and plug it back in, and see if any of the devices change.
If the Bluetooth adapter is an unknown device, then your search needs to be getting windows drivers for it, or otherwise getting windows to recognize it exists.
I hope this is at least a bit helpful. TLDR: check Device Manager
Thanks. I actually have two different devices that may (may) be able to transmit Bluetooth. I have two because I didn’t know that some of these adapters can do both WiFi AND Bluetooth at the same time. So I bought one to do BT, and one to do WiFi.
One of these shows up in Device Manager under “Network Adapters” as tp-link wireless USB adapter. It’s the one serving as a WiFi connection to my modem.
The other one ( MSI AX1800 – adapter) is under “Other Devices” as 802.11ax WLAN adapter but has a warning sign on it (and a question mark on “Other Devices”. It doesn’t have any driver at all. When I try to add one it says it can’t fin any drivers on the net for it.
I went to manufacturer’s site to get driver, download it, and when I tried to install it said something like “Sorry, you have the wrong OS”. I double-checked and redownloaded making sure it was for Windows 10 Pro, not Windows 11 Pro. So I don’t even know how to get the correct driver.
Still, even the one I’m using for WiFi that works ( tp-link wireless USB adapter won’t connect Bluetooth.
Windows can’t use that AX1800 hardware device without a manufacturer-provided driver. Which you do not have and seemingly cannot get. Way back near the OP you told us you’d installed drivers along with the hardware. That seems to not have been accurate, or they got removed somehow along the way.
The only way forward with this hardware is to get the Win10 compatible driver somehow.
It’s not impossible that the manufacturer’s website is just goofed up, with the link labeled “Win10” not pointing to the right file on their server. First move is to try their customer service / tech support. Second move is to buy a different brand of Bluetooth adaptor but make sure first that you can get drivers that work with Win10.
I put my Android phone in ‘Mobile Hotspot’ mode, and it creates its own WiFi network, which I then connect to with my laptop. Never tried it with BT.
When I bought my W10 Lenovo laptop a couple of years ago, I also purchased a BT mouse. The connection between the two was flaky at best. I ended up discarding that mouse and purchasing a USB-dongle-wireless mouse, which has worked flawlessly.
I have successfully paired my Lenovo laptop with a BT speaker. Haven’t tried it with my hearing aids, which are usually paired to my Android phone.
Then, the only way to “turn on Bluetooth” is if you see that switch. It’s on by default. If you don’t see that switch at all, it means Windows doesn’t believe you have Bluetooth (i.e., your adapter isn’t working properly).
If you do see that switch already, then Bluetooth is already on and your radio is working. If your adapter came with any antennae (some do, some don’t), make sure they’re screwed in securely and both pointing upward towards the ceiling. Then you just have to ensure your hearing aids are in “pairing mode” (see its manual or ask its manufacturer) and Windows should be able to connect to it when you “Add new Bluetooth or other device”.
I think there are two separate problems here:
Your manufacturer isn’t giving you the right drivers for some reason
Your adapter seems to have BOTH Wi-Fi (which is what the “AX1800” refers to) AND (hopefully) Bluetooth. They may require two separate sets of drivers. Even if you get the wi-fi part of it working, the Bluetooth portion is different.
Rather than fiddling with its drivers, can I suggest a different approach altogether? Return that thing and just buy a simpler adapter. (Or just charge it back on your credit card and cite the broken drivers as the reason. Their problem, not yours.)
If you get a generic USB bluetooth-only dongle without the wifi, you probably won’t even need special drivers for it – they’ve been plug and play for a decade or two now. It’s only the special Bluetooth + WiFi hybridization that’s confusing Windows.
I’m 95% certain that if you just pay $15 for a simple Bluetooth-only adapter like this, you can just plug it in and it’ll work automatically, no driver or fussing about required.
