I have a question regarding a conflict between two USB Bluetooth devices - can you help? This one's not easy?

[msc545]

I have a desktop computer and the motherboard has a built-in USB device that does not work very well since it transmits a lot of static to an external speaker that I need to use. I also have a USB dongle which is plugged into a USB port external on the computer. If I run the internal Bluetooth device and I don't run the external adapter, then the internal device does not work well and just transmits a lot of static into the speaker along with a little bit of content. If I turn off the internal device, then I'm not sure whether the external device will work well or not. But I literally have no way or I cannot find a way to turn on that external device to even test it. And that is the crux of the problem here. I can disable the internal device in the Device Manager in Windows 10, but if I do that, there is literally no switch that I can use, or that I can find at least, to turn on the external device even though it's plugged in. There is apparently no way to turn on the external device in Device Manager, even though it shows up there. Can you help me with this? This is Windows 10 running on a desktop computer. I forgot to add that trying to use the internal device with or without the dongle results in just a ton of static. It's not worth having, and if I could remove it, I would, but obviously, there is no way to do that.

Updates

5 mo

I finally got this resolved. It involved having to update the driver for the dongle. After I did that, everything fell into place. The on-board device is now disabled, and I now have a soft switch in the OS for the dongle.

[NathanDavis]

good'ol "update your drivers" fix... lmao

[msc545]

It wasn't just drivers, unfortunately. It was also the fact that the on-board Bluetooth adapter (that is, the one on the motherboard) was actually broken in a very weird way where it would transmit some sound, but the sound it transmitted was pretty dirty sounding and static-y and nasty. So I wasn't anticipating that initially, but that turned out to be part of the problem. Once I disabled it and enabled the dongle, then life got better.

[Sevenpointfive]

did you try turning on/off mono audio? if it was on then you might not have the option to select where your audio goes?

[msc545]

I'm not sure what you mean by mono audio. Can you explain, please?

[Sevenpointfive]

look at the bottom right corner of your screen. click the speaker. the click the settings gear below those options. then click sound on the next window. that will give you your sound options to play with. it might make it easier to solve because device manager is not user friendly.

[msc545]

What I've got underneath the text describing the speaker is a volume slider. Nothing much else there. I'm fairly familiar with Device Managers and comfortable with it, so using it is really not a problem.

[Sevenpointfive]

you can get to the same page through settings>sound (it has more options than device manager unless you're choosing advanced options anyway)

have you hovered over the right side of that bar? there's a sound input/ouput. you can tinker with.

[msc545]

I'm seeing that, but unfortunately, it's not seeing the USB dongle at all as long as the on-board device is running, which it's doing right now. The only way I can turn off the internal device is to remove it in Device Manager, but when I do that, it also removes my ability to turn on the dongle at all.

[msc545]

My choices come down to:
1. Using the internal device which adds a horrendous amount of static to my speakers
2. Turning it off, but if I turn it off then I have nothing because I can't use the dongle at all. There is no way to turn it on.
So I may be stuck without any USB functionality for this machine.

[Sevenpointfive]

you could get a cheap wireless speaker and turn the crackling one off?

[msc545]

I actually got it working properly. I disabled the on-board unit, changed the driver on the dongle, and it all works fine now. I didn't want to get a cheap wireless speaker because this one is actually an excellent speaker that was pretty expensive, and right now it sounds great.

[msc545]

Okay hooray! Yet another victory. Just for the hell of it, I decided to see if I could get the dongle talking to my TV soundbar (which is actually a very nice soundbar). Bingo! What do you know? It's working, and it sounds great too. So I ordered another matching speaker, and I'm going to do stereo speakers in this room. The one speaker I have sounds terrific, so I figure two of them will sound even more terrific. And I am going to see if I can figure out a way to use them with my guitar as well. That should be fun.

[Sevenpointfive]

congratulations! i knew you could do it. i'm going to go look up what a dongle is. it sounds like a bad idea.

[msc545]

Lol.

[msc545]

A dongle is just a very small device that typically fits in a USB slot or something close to that. The dongle I'm talking about here is literally about maybe at most protrudes about a half inch out from the slot and it's stuck in there. These are tiny little devices that provide connectivity for many different USB devices. They are nice because they're not very obtrusive and don't catch on things and not so nice because if you take them out of the slot it's really super easy to lose them I need. I have one for my mouse and keyboard as well.

[msc545]

My speaker that I've been fighting so hard to use sounds like a million bucks.

[Sevenpointfive]

ok. i didn't know those types of hardware were called that.

[msc545]

Yeah, I mean I just call them that and I've heard them called that for years, but they may also be called something else. I'm not sure.

[Sevenpointfive]

it's right. it took over for the varied tech of the same nature, instead of calling them all their own thing.

[msc545]

I think so. It makes it a lot easier.

[exitseven]

what kind of USB device lives on the motherboard?

[msc545]

I'm not sure what the device is, but it's integrated into the motherboard. I can turn it off in the BIOS, but getting into the BIOS has been problematic. So far, the usual ways of getting into the BIOS have not worked. Windows just grabs the machine and boots, and there is almost no way to stop it.

[exitseven]

@msc545 can you find it in Device Manager and disable it from there?

[msc545]

I can do that, but when I disable it in Device Manager, I've completely disabled my ability to turn the dongle on and off, and the dongle doesn't show up as being Bluetooth active. I needed to be Bluetooth active in order to use Bluetooth obviously.

[exitseven]

@msc545 the solution you posted was exactly what I was going to charge you a hundred bucks for.

[msc545]

Oh, well if you had only told me that ahead of time, I would have given you the $100. But actually, I think it was a pretty straightforward solution. The only thing that was a bit of a red herring was the fact that the dongle driver was broken and it wasn't broken in an obvious way. But when I replaced it, that had a lot to do with fixing the problem.

[exitseven]

@msc545 When you buy add on products you should always suspect a wonky driver. Manutacturers continually update their drivers. Download the latest one and see if that dos the trick. Most of the time it will if it is a weird problem that defies a solution.

[msc545]

Yes, installing a later driver actually helped the situation almost completely. That's a good piece of advice to suspect wonky drivers. I've never really considered that too much unless something is malfunctioning, but the truth is that even if it's not blatantly malfunctioning, its performance might be sub-optimal without the latest driver.

[msc545]

Lesson learned.

[Staximus]

I'm glad you found a solution. I was going to recommend Winchester #4 buckshot and a new computer.

[msc545]

It was a bit of a wrestling match with this one. It took me several hours to deal with it. The Winchester buckshot and the new shotgun would have been an easier and quicker solution, but then I really would have needed another computer, and I would have had the same problem since it wasn't exactly the computer that was the issue. It had more to do with the components I was using.

[Staximus]

Computers are dumb with their silly drivers going out of date when you update your software, and then you have to buy new crap because there's no new driver updates for your "out of date" devices

[msc545]

That sometimes does happen, but usually it's just somebody like me being careless and overlooking what's needed.

[msc545]

This is a machine I built myself from components. It has an Asus Maximus Code IX motherboard with an Intel Wireless-AC 9560 integrated Bluetooth chip, which is not worth shit. The motherboard is very good; they should have left that damn Bluetooth chip out of it.