Z270G Bluetooth issue with Qualcomm Atheros QCA61x4A Bluetooth 4.1 FIXED

[Conza]

EDIT: Final post on thread is the specific steps

 

Hello there, my bluetooth has stopped working, multiple times over multiple years and to this day still, for no apparent reason. I've left all of my posts below but I'm consolidating everything here, should just need to read this.

 

This may apply to similar bluetooth issues with your system, your mileage may vary of course, good luck I hope this helps.

 

Symptoms

Bluetooth is absent from Device Manager, no on/off Bluetooth switch in Windows. Restarting any/all services does nothing, reinstalling the driver on it's own does nothing.

 

Go find your Bluetooth driver, this is much harder than it appears especially for older motherboards and Windows constantly evolving. You could try from your device's manufacturer website (in this case ASUS for my ROG STRIX Z270G), however in my case those drivers were ineffective.

 

Instead for myself in this example, I researched to discover the name of the on-board device is the Qualcomm Atheros QCA61x4A. Google searching at time of writing lead me to an unofficial repository for Qualcomm Atheros drivers, you can try Qualcomm directly however I had no luck as they wanted me to be from a company, these drivers have seemed fine to me so far.

 

From https://www.ath-drivers.eu/atheros-wireless-drivers.html searching for my device ID/name "QCA61x4A" I selected Windows 64-bit. From there I recommend the top/latest driver, at time of writing I used v12.0.0.1016

 

Once you have the file, here are the steps I used.

 

1. Shutdown, unplug.

2. Plug in and power on, prepare for bios entry

3. In bios, disable both Wifi and Bluetooth devices

4. Device Manager, View > Show hidden devices

5. Network Adapter, uninstall the Qualcomm device, it should be faded/greyed out to indicate it isn't detected

6. Scan for hardware changes to ensure it isn't somehow detected and reinstalling itself, once confirmed, restart prepare for bios entry again

7. Re-enable both Wifi and Bluetooth

8. Locate to and install "netathr10x.inf" with the right click shell. It takes AGES to install, maybe a minute or two

9. Restart and hope/pray it appears.

 

For fun, if it did help you and it wasn't this motherboard or bluetooth device, list in some keywords in your reply to help others find this trick.

Edited October 9, 2021 by Conza
Update for October 2021

[Conza]

And it's happened again.

Uninstall, Reinstall, Uninstall and power down. I am adding power off instead of restarting as I read somewhere that this helped.

 

EDIT: Yep so, uninstall, reinstall, uninstall driver. Shut down. Power on, Install and immediate restart, now it's all fine again. Just to be clear because, re-reading my own instructions they weren't working for me.

 

It just went without any warning, I was scrolling through a video on VLC and it just stops, no explanation.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Conza
Confirmation

[Conza]

Listen to me, you crazy bastard, you're back again, and this advice above didn't work for you last time did it? Well, this will.

 

Don't use the Asus drivers, they're hot garbage, they're separate for bluetooth and wifi, you need to go to the SOURCE

 

Get this file, extract it to a folder, right click on "netathr10x.inf" and install. DONE. Restart, and your headphones will be picked up and you can carry on with your life.

 

https://www.ath-drivers.eu/download-driver-nr-368-for-atheros-QCA61x4A-and-Windows10.html

[Conza]

My instructions are still a little unclear.

 

Ensuring you have downloaded and know where the files are

 

Uninstall the WLAN driver, install the WLAN driver, Uninstall the WLAN driver. Shut down. Unplug.

 

Plug in, power on, install WLAN driver, restart. THEN it should work.

[Conza]

Sweet. Jezuz.

 

The driver file you have is fine, don't worry about re-researching separate drivers, just use that one.

 

I did play around with Safe-mode I don't think it helped at all.

 

1. Shutdown, unplug.

2. Plug in and power on, prepare for bios entry

3. In bios, disable both Wifi and Bluetooth devices

4. Device Manager, View > Show hidden devices

5. Network Adapter, uninstall the Qualcomm device, it should be faded/greyed out to indicate it isn't detected

6. Scan for hardware changes to ensure it isn't somehow detected and reinstalling itself, once confirmed, restart prepare for bios entry again

7. Re-enable both Wifi and Bluetooth

8. Locate to and install "netathr10x.inf" with the right click shell. It takes AGES to install, maybe a minute or two

9. Restart and hope/pray it appears.