Bluetooth driver dissappeared from device manager after disabling it

ankithd · 30 May 2019

Device : Lenovo y50-70 i7-4710HQ, Gtx 860M, bluetooth was qualcomm atheros ar956x?

I was testing out my new wireless earphones and after turning the bluetooth off (from the bluetooth settings found in the notification panel on the bottom right of windows 10) it would not turn back on. After that i removed the paired earphones by opening bluetooth settings and choosing "remove device". When trying to pair the ear phones again by adding new bluetooth device i noticed that it said i had not turned on bluetooth. I opened device manager to see that my bluetooth device had a little yellow warning triangle. I tried to update my driver but i already had the latest, i tried to disable the device hoping to re-enabling would solve the problem. After disabling it, there was a screen refresh and my whole bluetooth category disappeared in the device manager!

Things i've tried:
1) Restarting all services that have the word "Bluetooth" in them
2) Restarted Laptop
3) Control panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Devices and Printers -> add a device, did not detect my bluetooth
4)

hsehestedt · 31 May 2019

By any chance, are you running Windows 10 1903? I noticed that there was a Bluetooth related fix in the latest cumulative update from just a couple of days ago which Microsoft describes like this:

Addresses an issue that prevents the removal of Bluetooth® peripheral devices from some systems with specific Bluetooth radios.

If you are on 1903, trying checking for updates . The update that you are looking for is KB4497935.

Next, make sure that the system doesn't have a keyboard or hardware switch that may have been activated to disable bluetooth.

Also, does Lenovo have any sort of software installed that would allow you to enable / disable bluetooth?

While unlikely that this would have changed, verify that if there is an option in the BIOS to enable / Disable bluetooth, that it is enabled there.

Next, open Device Manager. Select View > Show hidden devices. See if your Bluetooth device now shows up and if you can enable it.

If still not visible, at the top of the Device Manager tree, right-click on the computer name and choose Scan for hardware changes.

ankithd · 31 May 2019

hsehestedt said:

By any chance, are you running Windows 10 1903? I noticed that there was a Bluetooth related fix in the latest cumulative update from just a couple of days ago which Microsoft describes like this:

Addresses an issue that prevents the removal of Bluetooth® peripheral devices from some systems with specific Bluetooth radios.

If you are on 1903, trying checking for updates . The update that you are looking for is KB4497935.

Next, make sure that the system doesn't have a keyboard or hardware switch that may have been activated to disable bluetooth.

Also, does Lenovo have any sort of software installed that would allow you to enable / disable bluetooth?

While unlikely that this would have changed, verify that if there is an option in the BIOS to enable / Disable bluetooth, that it is enabled there.

Next, open Device Manager. Select View > Show hidden devices. See if your Bluetooth device now shows up and if you can enable it.

If still not visible, at the top of the Device Manager tree, right-click on the computer name and choose Scan for hardware changes.

Hey thanks for the response i was loosing hope. Im on windows 10 1803 so unfortunately i dont think that update applies to me.

1) I've actually tried to view hidden devices 2 days ago and i saw ALL my bluetooth devices again but all of them were greyed out and i could not enable/update any of them. When updating it said the device was disconnected. Atleast i was able to see that my bluetooth device was a "qualcomm atheros ar3012 bluetooth 4.0 adapter". I downloaded the win 10 64 bit driver and tried to install it. After restart it didn't help and now i can't even find the bluetooth devices greyed out even when i turn on show hidden devices

2) I have Ubuntu on dual boot and the bluetooth works fine
3) There was a lenovo tool for enabling wifi/bluetooth/etc.. and i turned on bluetooth via that but nothing happens. I tried to add bluetooth devices, check device manager, but nothing changed

I'll try to see if i can do something in the bios. This was driver i tried to install in step (1)

Thank you again for the suggestions

edit: Couldn't find anything in the BIOS either. Is there a way to "repair windows 10" while maintaining my dual boot?