[SOLVED] Why is Wifi working and not Bluetooth?

[Joel89]

I have a WLAN and Bluetooth card. Specifically the one that came in the Gateway dx4380g-uw308 desktop. When I installed the driver however it only installed the wifi part. Win 10 tells me to turn on Bluetooth if it's off but I can't seem to find where to turn it on at. Also when I try to connect a bluetooth device it says "Couldn't Connect" Turn on BT or Update Driver. So I head to device manager and there is no BT tab so I click on Network Adapters and sure enough the Wifi adapter is there. Update and it tells me the most recent update is there already. Can I pick any brains on this? Thanks.

 

[Herr B]

try installing the driver from the manufacturers webpage. once successfully installed, you should see a small blue bluetooth icon beneath your clock in the taskbar on the bottom right of your screen.

 

[Joel89]

That did not work. I've been at this for a couple hours now. I'm almost certain that I actually did that first after installing the card. The wifi nor the bt would work and I dont even remember what driver I used to even get the wifi to work but at first it wouldn't even recognize that the adapter was even there. Now just the wifi shows up. Fresh reboot since reading your suggestion.

 

[Paperdoc]

Although it's one card, the WiFi and Bluetooth functions may actually be two devices with separate device drivers. I'm pretty sure on my system with those functions included on the mobo using Intel chips, I get frequent driver update messages for the two devices separately. If you do not see the Bluetooth item in Device Manager, Windows has not detected it OR has not been able to find the correct device driver for it for use in Win 10.

Try this. FIRST try to find the website for the maker of that card, and look there specifically for a Bluetooth driver for Win 10. If you find one you can download and stash someplace you know it should be. IF it comes also with installation instructions, that would help.

On the other hand, if you can't find a driver there or have no installation info, try this. In the search window at bottom left type Device Manager, then click on the listed item in the pop-up. Click on the name of your system at the very top of the list. Then Choose from the top menu Action ... Scan for Hardware Changes. This will force Windows to re-scan your entire machine and hopefully find the Bluetooth device. IF it knows what that is, you can let it do its own search for a driver and install that. Or IF you have the drive already by download, you can tell Windows not to search, and just install the driver you have. If this works well, the device will be listed in Device Manager with NO Yellow caution sign on it.

 

[Joel89]

I have done 2 of 3 of your suggestions. I have found the correct BT driver for the device however when I install it, it does nothing. When it installs I usually have device manager to the side and when it installs the wifi part I can see DM refreshing and stuff but when it gets to the BT install, nothing happens in DM. Refresh manually, nothing. Reboot, nothing. It's beyond me and the last thing I want to do is take my pc somewhere for something as mundane as a driver not properly installing. The card actually came from an old pc I had and I only just recently needed to use it since my wired headset kicked the bucket and now I'm trying to go wireless. Now as for the 3rd option, Is there a way to install right from DM even if the device doesn't show up? I don't know of any way. But then again I'm no Ambassador. Thanks for the reply

 

[Joel89]

I think I have found my problem. LOL SO OBVIOUS TOO!!! If it is my problem. This card has a 4 pin connection sticking out of the back of it. I just watched a video of a guy taking apart his old Gateway and vioala! His has a cable protruding from the back of his. Now I'm at the point where I don't know if it hooks up to power or if it connects to motherboard. I'm going to get my hand on my old tower and check out that cable. I gave it to my dad so I'll have to make an excuse to look inside. Hopefully that fixes the issue. If not, you guys will hear about it.

 

[Herr B]

please send a picture of the connector.

 

[Paperdoc]

That DOES sound like you are on the right track. You have not said, but I assume the card is installed in a PCIe slot. Such slots can provide only limited power to the card and any connected device because the PCIe system never was designed as a power source. So any card that DOES need to provide or use much power also requires connection to the PSU directly to get that power, and that is done with an edge connector. A cable from the PSU with either a SATA or 4-pin Molex female connector normally plugs into that card connector. As Herr B says, a photo of the edge connector might help.

 

[Joel89]

Hopefully the link works. This is a generic pic of the card. The 4 pins that protrude is the where the cable should go. The guy at the pc parts store said it can go in either the black or white port. Balck gets power from mobo while white gets power from psu. I plan on heading out to my dads this weekend so I'll have to see if that cable is in the old gateway or if I managed to lose it.

 

[Joel89]

Idk why this post was moved to networking. This has nothing to do with networking. This does however have everything to do with the component(s) and getting them to work. I can see the confusion.

 

[bill001g]

It is likely USB. Not sure why they need a USB for a card in a slot but I have seen this before on the bluetooth wifi combo cards

 

[Paperdoc]

I con;t recognize either of those ports clearly fromthat pic. It has some written ifo on the card like a Mo9del numner. What do those say? Maybe we can find more details with that.