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Inspiron 3668, Total Loss of Bluetooth
This has to be some kind of a bug. The last time I started my Inspiron 3668 the mouse, keyboard, and printer were not working. Of course I surmised that the Bluetooth was not working. I tried every trick on the internet to get Bluetooth working again, but every vestige of Bluetooth was gone except Bluetooth did show up as a hidden device on control panel, but everything thing else was gone: no toggle to turn it on, no desktop icons etc. Even in trouble shooting the response was this PC does not have bluetooth which I know it does. I tried driver updates and literally everything I could find to check. As a last resort I did a Restore, and it brought it back. Does anyone know what's going on with this. I surely has to be a bug.
fireberd
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33.3K Posts
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August 11th, 2019 09:00
I would only consider it a problem if it happened again.
Who knows what caused it. It was being recognized by the BIOS, just Windows "lost" it. If it was a hardware/BIOS problem, just restoring Windows would not have corrected it.
speedstep
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August 12th, 2019 08:00
Dell wireless keyboards use proprietary dongle not bluetooth.
Bluetooth is NOT standard with this model.
speedstep
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September 6th, 2019 11:00
If its not disabled in bios it may be due to the new security issue KNOB with Bluetooth so the driver has been disabled.
This package contains the Bluetooth driver for Intel 8265, 8260, 7265 (D0), 7265 (C0), 3165, 7260, and 3160 wireless and Bluetooth cards. Bluetooth driver is the software that helps your operating system to communicate effectively with Bluetooth devices. The package is supported on Dell Alienware, XPS, Inspiron, Precision, and Vostro laptops that run the Windows 10 (64-bit) operating system. The package fixes the Bluetooth pairing vulnerability CVE-2018-5383 and contains certified drivers for Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and Windows 10 April 2018 Update.More details
brhutch
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September 6th, 2019 11:00
RoHe
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43.6K Posts
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September 6th, 2019 17:00
And did you check in the Win 10 control panel to see if the BT radio is still turned on and that the right apps have permission to access BT?
brhutch
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September 7th, 2019 07:00
Ok good to know. Thanks for the info. If I download and install this file will it disrupt the bluetooth if some other update has not occured?
Also to stop all of this I just uninstalled the Dell Update. Is this going to cause any obvious issues?
Thx
speedstep
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September 8th, 2019 07:00
Dell updates did not do this. MICROSOFT disabling all bluetooth vendor drivers did. Its not ever going to work again until you download and install the OEM Dell driver as adminstrator. Microsoft Deliberately disabled vendors bluetooth drivers for "security reasons". Updates are no longer optional. Broadcom®(BCM943602CS) Wi-Fi combo card recently gave up on doing updates because of this and removed all the generic drivers from their site. The other unfortunate side effect is that every time microsoft does a "feature update" they will bork you again and you will have to manually de install and re install the latest drivers.
Windows 10 update includes reliability improvements (They Break things) to Windows Update Service components in consumer Windows 10
1507, 1511, 1607, 1703, 1709, 1803, 1809 and 1903
https://www.broadcom.com/support/bluetooth
Bluetooth versions:
Windows Server 2016 does not support Bluetooth due to the same "SECURITY Reasons" WHQL certification is NOW REQUIRED.
This means if microsoft DE certifys a driver or vendor it will no longer load or work forever. Updates from microsoft are NO LONGER OPTIONAL.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/component-guidelines/bluetooth
brhutch
12 Posts
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December 7th, 2019 13:00
Ok it's happened again. After a WINDOWS update Bluetooth is totally gone. Went to Dell and downloaded new drivers. Didn't help. There are other examples of this on the net, but no one can ever seem to say how to bring BT back. Like I said the last time I did a restore and it fixed it. This time that didn't even work. Speedstep has identified the problem, but I still can't get BT back. Definitely a bug with this computer and Windows.
throwaway_5420203
1 Message
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May 4th, 2020 15:00
I had a longer reply but server ate it. In brief, I just had same problem. The support page lists https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=46g81&oscode=wt64a&productcode=inspiron-3668-desktop as the latest supported driver for my 3668, but installing that didn't fix the problem. However Bluetooth started magically working again the next morning after Device Manager reported auto-installing the 10.0.3.22 Qualcomm/Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher driver. Hope that helps if others have the problem.