Problems with Windows 10 Bluetooth drivers

[Clunkclick]

Definitely the case with some of the so called cheaper white goods.

 

Two years ago, I bought a cheap (£200 ?) Hotpoint "Future" fridge from JL to replace the AEG Santos crap that had rusted through in 8 years (Previous Tricity brand had lasted double that). Made in turkey, so probably Beko or a near competitor. Within a month  lug had broken off the compartment light cover ! My attitude was  leave it, as the two other fixing points. This week the final lug has just broken off - Hotpoint spares want £8.50 including p & p for  replacement. Gravy train !

 

The bloody thing is supposed to be self-defrosting, but, during the summer, the ice build-up on the back wall would impress Scott and Shackleton and that's despite the thing making God awful pinging and cracking sounds (That make you jump out of the comfy chair) everytime the embedded defroster heating elements come on.

 

And the thing uses an incandescent lamp in the cooling compartment and, better still, the lamp blister heavily intrudes into the compartment so users envitably knock it every time food is placed in or taken out. How negative can a design ethic be ?

 

"Future" my back passage ! More like one step forward, two back !

 

Nick

[Clunkclick]

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/intel-compute-stick-intel-atom-32gb-hdmi-computing-dongle-windows-8.1-fs-010-in.html#comments

 

 

No comment on Wi-Fi/Bluetooth problems for this one.

 

As a USB PnP device would the internals (Rather than the interface) be running under Windows ?

 

Nick

[io1901]

I've used my Linx 10 connected to bluetooth and wifi and seems to work fine with keyboard and mouse but totally fails if you try to stream anything to a bluetooth speaker. I think it's own to the hardware can't handle the bandwidth (it is a usb, connected internally, device after all.)

[Clunkclick]

Solved.

 

Fitting a cheapo miniature Bluetooth dongle  (And disabling the on-board BT) solved the streaming  problems.

 

BT streaming to the Easy Acc is fine now - No loss of signal, no garbled "Digital salad", no interference with the audio  when simultanoeosly accessing other web pages.

 

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

 

[gadgetman]

So it was the cheap tablet and not Microsofts fault after all.

[Clunkclick]

OK, granted I may have been prematurely over critical of MS in this respect.

 

But to be fair, who can honestly say, without a shed load more delving, whether the problem resides iexclusively in the RealTek chip hardware, Real-Teks own hardware microcode, which runs the chip or in the Operating system interface with the device , or  combination of 2 or all three of these factors - remembering that the route and interfaces for data transmission from the Windows kernel messaging system to the mini USB BT device that works is entirely different from the route from the kernel to the Real-Tek chip. And of course remembering that the mini USB is made by a different developer , Avantree.

 

My amateur view, obtained by viewing  Microsoft  published web resources for BT applications developers is that the specification to which MS require developers to conform when developing  BT  application interfaces with Windows  is very liberal, allowing a lot of variation in the interface and is a far cry from the tightening-up of specifications for Windows developers that was supposed to happen in the wake of the MS accredited developer process of 20 years ago. May be its the over flexible approach which creates the problems on the principle that you give them an inch and they (Some developers) take a mile.

 

All for the sake of $9 - worst case cost of the RTL872BS.

 

 

Further thoughts.

 

I take it that, once a developer is accredited by MS for the production of  particular type of  Windows product, then presumably they can go ahead and develop and   issue to market with no, or little further reference to Microsoft. If that's the case, then the lack of a finished product system conformity audit, in the context of  MS's liberal interface specifications policy, would surely increase the risk of problems occurring. Then it would be MS's fault.

 

 

Nick

Edited 1 September, 2016 by Clunkclick

[Clunkclick]

I've since found, that the claims made about the order of installation of the Wi-Fi and BT drivers are correct, well, at least, in part.

If you disable the Wi-Fi and BT drivers (Through Device Manager), re-start the system and then re-enable the BT driver first followed by the Wi-Fi driver, some of the issues associated with audio streaming go away i.e. the frequent random dropping of the BT signal, the "Digital salad" corruption of the audio stream. However, whilst the audio stream is continuous, it is plain that the quality is low, much lower than when using the vice standalone USB BT device.

Nick

[Clunkclick]

<Cough>

 

 http://www.geek.com/microsoft/its-microsofts-fault-cheap-windows-laptops-dont-use-better-hardware-1669513/

 

 

Nick

[Clunkclick]

Has there been a recent  MS BT drivers update ?

 

Went to stream radio through the Avantree plug-in BT Tx and it didn't work.

 

The BT wouldn't detect the Easy-Acc stand alone speaker.

 

So, I messed about abit with various settings, no joy, until I removed the Avantree and re-instated the BT on-board the tablet.

 

Perfect transmission. All streaming radio works perfectly through the on-board BT.

 

Very strange.

 

Avantree to storage.

 

 

Nick

[Clunkclick]

Finally, the last piece of the jigsaw snaps into place.

 

Couldn't figure out why certain audio media streaming files types wouldn't play through the Easy-Acc standalone speaker, they kept routing through the Tablets built-in speakers.  This happened even when, on the tablet, in the settings panel, BT was set to on, the Easy-Acc was listed as connected and, in the control panel/sound, Easy_Acc was set as the default sound device. This always semed to happen whenever m3u8 streams were played through the Windows Media Player (The system default media player).

 

Turns out that Windows Media Player has its own  (Duplicate) settings section for audio output and that this was set to in-built speakers rather than the Easy-Acc and that this wasn't being updated automatically when the Audio settings in control panel were changed. So i changed WMP audio output to point to the Easy Acc, now ALL audio streaming files play through the Easy-Acc.

 

Another <cough> for MS ?

 

 

Nick

[Clunkclick]

I think I may now have solved the problem of random audio scrambling and disconnection of the BT link between the Linx tablet and the Easy Acc.

 

It is bandwith related, but it is resolvable through alteration of driver parameters within Windows 10.

 

The drivers concerned are Com port drivers for serial transmission over a BT link.

 

These drivers can be accessed through "Device Manager".

 

On the "Ports" tab within Device Manager, I found two sub-tabs named "Standard serial over BT Link (Com 42)" and "Standard serial over BT link (Com43)". When you double-click on either of these sub-tabs, a window pops-up. On this window, the "Port Settings" tab is of relevance. On my Linx tablet system, the baud rate for the link was set to "9600 baud" and the flow control as "None". I changed these respectively to   baud rate"128,000 baud" and Flow-control "Hardware". When set, i then re-started the tablet.

 

After that, all has been well with the on-board BT on the Linx tablet. I have had no dropped or scrambled connections and have been able to dispense with the cheapo plug-in USB BT device.

 

 

Nick

Edited 11 September, 2016 by Clunkclick