Bluetooth suddenly unavailable

ianbhenderson73 · 20 Feb 2017

Hi

I don't know if anyone else has come across this. My PC (HP Pavilion 550-111na) has been running Windows 10 Home x64 since I bought it in June of last year. Everything's up to date in terms of windows updates, but all of a sudden the Bluetooth has completely vanished.

I used to be able to see the Bluetooth logo sitting in the system tray, and it would happily detect Bluetooth devices without much intervention from me. All of a sudden though, the logo has gone and doesn't seem to show up anywhere in the Control Panel.

Is this sudden loss of Bluetooth as a result of a recently downloaded Windows update?

ellellell1 · 21 Feb 2017

I had a similar problem with my Wifi not working, but not sure if it was because of an update.

A simple fix was to uninstall the driver from device manager (in your case, do this for Bluetooth), then restart the computer. Also make sure the Bluetooth driver is up to date from HP's driver support website.

Windows 10: Right click on start > Device Manager.

ianbhenderson73 · 22 Feb 2017

Hi. Slight problem with that. First of all, the PC is an HP but most importantly, I can't see the Bluetooth listed anywhere in the Device Manager.

I've also tried restoring to a previous restore point, but that failed.

ellellell1 · 22 Feb 2017

ianbhenderson73 said:

Hi. Slight problem with that. First of all, the PC is an HP but most importantly, I can't see the Bluetooth listed anywhere in the Device Manager. I've also tried restoring to a previous restore point, but that failed.

Sorry, my mistake. I meant HP

.

Click view in Device Manager and then on Hidden Devices. Does a Bluetooth device show there?

It is possible that the driver has been uninstalled or removed somehow... Go to HP's support website and download the latest driver for Bluetooth. Windows Update usually detects missing drivers, but not always.

I would also check to see if your computer has a button/hot key for turning Bluetooth on or off.

EDIT: I believe you can find the driver directly here in Driver-Network.

ianbhenderson73 · 22 Feb 2017

Hi.

Thanks for that, I'll give it a try tonight. It just seems really odd. I only became aware of the problem because I was trying to synchronise my wearable tracker against my PC and the PC was complaining that it couldn't find it.

Being honest (and in view of the fact that it's a desktop) I suspect that there isn't a hot-key for disabling the Bluetooth, purely because I can't see any reference to Bluetooth in the O/S. Given Microsoft's history for releasing patches with unintended side-effects, I'd be tempted to suspect that it's been a patch that's caused the issue.

ellellell1 · 22 Feb 2017

ianbhenderson73 said:

Hi.

Thanks for that, I'll give it a try tonight. It just seems really odd. I only became aware of the problem because I was trying to synchronise my wearable tracker against my PC and the PC was complaining that it couldn't find it.

Being honest (and in view of the fact that it's a desktop) I suspect that there isn't a hot-key for disabling the Bluetooth, purely because I can't see any reference to Bluetooth in the O/S. Given Microsoft's history for releasing patches with unintended side-effects, I'd be tempted to suspect that it's been a patch that's caused the issue.

Yes it does seem odd. Hopefully its not something to do with the hardware itself (this is very unlikely). You could check the update history and see if there is any Bluetooth driver update or any stability update similar.

It is most likely just a case of restarting the driver.

Berton · 22 Feb 2017

I have Bluetooth on an HP Notebook, 2 Dell Notebooks and a MacBook Pro but Bluetooth doesn't work if the Wi-Fi is turned off, seems Bluetooth is part of the Wireless adapter.

ellellell1 · 22 Feb 2017

Berton said:

I have Bluetooth on an HP Notebook, 2 Dell Notebooks and a MacBook Pro but Bluetooth doesn't work if the Wi-Fi is turned off, seems Bluetooth is part of the Wireless adapter.

Ah, interesting... Nice comment. :)