My laptop's hardware supports bluetooth but bluetooth doesn't show up in windows

[Citysurvivor]

I haven't used bluetooth in ages but I can't find a bluetooth slider in my settings. There are no bluetooth drivers in device manager (even when I turn on "show hidden devices" and look under "network devices").

Going to Settings > Devices > Bluetooth & other devices doesn't show a bluetooth switch, and trying to go through the bluetooth device setup gives me an error telling me to turn on bluetooth or to update my drivers with windows update.

I updated my laptop to win10 a while back... maybe that's what's causing this? I tried running the bluetooth troubleshooter, but it tells me that my computer has no bluetooth capability. I know that's wrong because my laptop supports bluetooth: there's a status light (it's not lit however, and I've never tried to use bluetooth until now) for bluetooth.

Edit: I checked my BIOS and there is hardware support for bluetooth, and it isn't disabled, but there appears to be no bluetooth driver installed whatsoever.

 

[Math Geek]

updating to win 10 may have done it. did you check the laptop support page for win 10 bluetooth drivers?

possible there just is not win 10 support for your BT card which is why it does not show up. having the card and getting drivers to make it work are not the same thing. what is the laptop model?? can look and see if there is support for win 10. full model please. not just E12 (or whatever) but the full E12-1234g model number please as this will list the specific parts installed for your laptop.

 

[Citysurvivor]

updating to win 10 may have done it. did you check the laptop support page for win 10 bluetooth drivers?

possible there just is not win 10 support for your BT card which is why it does not show up. having the card and getting drivers to make it work are not the same thing. what is the laptop model?? can look and see if there is support for win 10. full model please. not just E12 (or whatever) but the full E12-1234g model number please as this will list the specific parts installed for your laptop.

I have a dell latitude e5410 laptop. I'll go look up those things you mentioned in a moment...

 

[jsmithepa]

W10 is your problem. hopefully your laptop vendor has a W10 specific driver that will update the laptop. Next option, find out what BT chipset it uses and go directly to the chipset vendor and pray they have a W10 driver. Last option, a new BT dongle that says to work for W10.

 

[Math Geek]

i don't see anything beyond win 7 support from dell

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/latitude-e5410/drivers

as jsmith noted if you identify the card itself, you can go to that site and see if they have win 10 drivers. but the age and the fact windows update did not install one leads me to believe they did not make one for win 10.

a cheap bt adapter would be your next best option. they make them really small that barely stick out from the usb port so once it's in, you can forget about it. should be able to get one for $10 or thereabouts.