Bluetooth Headphone 2 second lag

SiN_Fury · September 27, 2020

7 years ago I bought an HP Envy H8-1534 that has built in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. After a Windows update, both those stopped working. Wouldn't be much of an issue since I plug right into the Ethernet and use wired headphones instead. My daughter knocked over the computer while the headphones were plugged in and the headphone jack is unusable.

To get Bluetooth capabilities, I had to buy a dongle from Amazon. It worked alright until my daughter broke the antennae, greatly reducing the signal. Technically still useable but it cut in and out. I bought A newer dongle that had Bluetooth 4.2 instead of 4.0 like the old one had. Now my sound lags by literally 2 seconds, which make video editing a hassle. I plugged the old dongle with the broken antennae back in, and now that one is also lagging by 2 seconds. I looked for the most recent drivers, but that didn't help.

Any ideas? I'm borderline thinking of getting a new PC soon since I'm so out of date anyways.

GhostRoadieBL · September 27, 2020

have you tried uninstalling the bluetooth driver and then restarting to let windows updates find the driver for bluetooth 4.2? Different bluetooth receivers will have different versions but the same universal driver so it could be "stuck" in the older format which has major lag.

if that doesn't work you can try to reboot the Windows Audio Service:

Hold down the Windows key (on your keyboard) then press R to launch the “Run” dialog box
Type services.msc then hit Enter.
Scroll down to the bottom of the window that will appear and look for “Windows Audio”.
Right-click on it then select “Properties”.
On the “General” tab, select “Automatic” for the Start-Up type.
Click the “Recovery” tab.
On the drop-down selection for First Failure and Second Failure, select “Restart the Service”. Click OK.
Do the same steps for Windows Audio Endpoint Builder.
Restart your PC then reconnect your Bluetooth headphones."

before restarting the computer you should also reset the headphones

https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/06/how-to-reset-your-bluetooth-headphones/

each brand does this differently so you'll have to find the right way from their list.

SiN_Fury · September 27, 2020

Tried all those things. Resetting the headphones was promising as it brought the lag to about half a second initially, but the longer I watched a video the lag got longer until it was back to 2 seconds again. Also, I have to manually sync the headphones with the PC every time. They don't just auto connect like the did on the previous dongle.

Headphones are Sony WH CH400 if that matters

Edit: Actually the headphones do auto connect, it just takes about a minute. Every time it reconnects it is about half a second slow, and as before eventually slows down to 2 second lag.