Turns out that my motherboard's WiFi antenna is necessary for Bluetooth to work correctly
I was troubleshooting Bluetooth connection today and I thought that this is somehow related to software (PipeWire, bluez, bluetoothd and all that stuff). But no. Apparently Bluetooth barely works when WiFi antenna is disconnected from my ASUS motherboard.
Anyway, this might save a lot of time for someone, so I’m posting it here.
I usually connect it as a backup/so I don’t lose the antenas but im also mostly wired. Good to know that it helps with my Bluetooth as well. Being able to easily hookup your phone to pc via Bluetooth is underrated. Especially via the phone link windows app, so many features and things you can do when you have em hooked up.
Ugh - same here! I found this out maybe 6 months ago. Several years ago, I put together a moderate gaming PC to use on the family room TV. My spouse and I wanted to play Stray on release and figured this was the best way to go. The bluetooth was so spotty with our Xbox Series controller we had to sit really close to the TV and near the computer in order to play this game. It wasn’t the best experience playing since sometimes the controller would disconnect, but it was a great game nonetheless!
What was interesting at the time was that my spouse had asked, isn’t there supposed to be an antenna for the wifi, maybe that’s why the bluetooth isn’t working well. And me being dumb and relying on old knowledge, told my spouse, “It’s just for the wifi, not bluetooth, so that won’t help us here.”
Flash forward to 6 months ago, and I was reading the manual for the Gigabyte motherboard and discovered I need to plug that antenna in. I made sure to talk to my spouse and tell them they were right, so they certainly rubbed it in that they were correct (playfully of course)! :)
Good reminder that it’s good to always read manuals because of things like this!
Has anyone else had an issue using a USB Bluetooth device, and if you turned off the motherboard Bluetooth, the USB didn’t work either? That happened to me when I was using it, at least. Now, I haven’t tried since then, so I could be wrong now.
There’s sometimes conflicts when both BT devices have the same supporting chipset. It’s why I don’t like integrated wifi on motherboards - I can’t upgrade the thing to a newer spec due to hardware conflicts that arise (blame Intel and their drivers)
It would be a waste to give them separate antenna, they both operate on the same frequency (and often with the same radio, although the BT side of an m.2 card is often supported by usb instead of pcie)
Having knowledge in electromagnetism it would seem pretty obvious to me that you need antennas to do the wireless-ing, but IDK what the average person knows.
Did that knowledge indicate how cell phones, which are much smaller than a desktop PC, obviously don’t require visible external antennas to get WiFi and Bluetooth?
Yeah I don’t blame people for not knowing since manufacturers hid them these days. Even wireless earbuds happen to have antennas covertly tucked in their tiny packages.
I had the same problem too, I ended up buying a USB Bluetooth transmitter. I figured the board was bad until I replaced it and had the same problem with the new one
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