Is anyone else finding that their Bluetooth module stops working every so often?
Four times since I’ve had my Framework 16 (about 6 weeks) my Bluetooth device has glitched out, all my Bluetooth devices disconnect and Windows does not recognise that it has any Bluetooth hardware connected.
I’m running Windows 11 with all updates (including optional), and I haven’t noticed any patten or series of actions that cause it to disconnect.
In Device Manager I see “Device Descriptor Request Failed”.
I found someone talking about a solution online which is to go to BIOS > Advanced > Battery Disconnect and disconnect the battery, then restart the laptop.
This does work, but what a pain it is when I’m in the middle of work or whatever. If it happened to me when I don’t have my power adapter with me, I’d be stuck until I got home.
Does anyone know of a more permanent solution to this, is it a driver issue? Can I install a different/better Bluetooth module? Any insights are much appreciated.
It does seem like other people have also experienced bluetooth issues on AMD. Unfortunately, I do not know of any fix for this issue. I have not used bluetooth much on my Framework 16 so I cannot confirm this issue.
My Framework Laptop 16 does this same thing too. Usually I am watching a movie and the audio is routed to my Alexa speaker. Sometimes it comes back; sometimes I have to reboot the machine and worse times I have to power the whole thing off and power the laptop back on again.
My suspicion is something to do with the Bluetooth driver in Windows 11. This may be possibly linked to something in the operating system seeing the system is “idle” and turning off things to save power. I typically have mine in Best Efficiency or Balanced mode.
I had not seen this thread but when i just tired the " BIOS > Advanced > Battery Disconnect and disconnect the battery" it did fix the issue. considering I don’t actually have a battery I am thinking i should leave that setting with the computer thinking i have no battery since i actually don’t. hopefully this fixes the issue long term ( as a note to the pkunk, i also use an echo as my speaker)
The issue is that battery disconnect is not a mode that can be enabled or disabled. Battery disconnect disconnects the battery power lines so the laptop cannot be powered. The moment a power adapter is added and the laptop powers on, that means battery disconnect mode has ended.
Hopefully, Framework can do some testing and find a solution to this. Or at the very least tell us what the cause is.
It may be the case that this has only happened to me when I have been using my headphones, but I often use my headphones, so I don’t know if it is the cause. However, with @pkunk and @Michael_Perrotta saying they also use Bluetooth audio devices, I wonder if it is specific to that?
Has it ever happened to anyone whilst they didn’t have a Bluetooth audio device connected?
Just had this same thing happen to me. I was in the middle of a movie on VLC connected over bluetooth to my earbuds. I got a chime from them that they had disconnected, checked the quick settings and saw the bluetooth icon completely disappear. Checked device manager and had the same error. I tried twice to uninstall and reinstall the framework driver package to no avail. I then tried the battery disconnect in the bios and that seemed to have brought it back for now.
If it helps earlier today I had installed Defender update KB226702 versions 1.419.325.0 , 1.419.338.0 and 1.419.351.0
Welcome to the community @Autumn_Brooks
I’m sorry to hear you’ve also had this issue, it’s very frustrating.
It happened to me last night, and this time I didn’t have any audio devices connected. I was using a Bluetooth gaming controller, a GameSir Nova, playing a bit of No Man’s Sky with my partner and there it goes again.
I thought Framework might have chimed in on this thread to shed some light on it but, if they are aware of it, they’ve been conspicuously absent from the conversation. I think I’ll contact support and see if we can get some answers.
To be fair, I have only used the RZ616 that was shipped with my FL16, and have used it perpetually with a bluetooth mouse, and occaisionally simultaneously had bluetooth headphones in use, all without a hiccup. I’m using Fedora 40 and now 41.
I suspect there may be some cards with iffy components on them, not that the RZ616 is a bad card in total. I don’t think you can blacklist the particular card with such a broad brush approach.
