Has my Acer Aspire E 15 Start ES1-512-C9QM got Bluetooth Capability?

TechNerd
TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter

I want to use wireless bluetooth ear buds with my laptop but can't find any reference to Bluetooth software in my Device Manager which is shown below:

Can I download an update from somewhere to use, or must I buy a Bluetooth Dongle ?

TIA😁

Best Answer

  • davidoliver
    davidoliver Member Posts: 3 New User
    Answer ✓

    Yes, the Acer Aspire E 15 Start ES1-512-C9QM model does have Bluetooth capability. The Acer Aspire E 15 series generally includes Bluetooth functionality, allowing you to connect compatible devices wirelessly. You can enable and use Bluetooth on your Acer laptop by following these steps:

    1. Go to the Windows Start menu by clicking on the Windows icon in the bottom left corner of your screen.
    2. In the search bar, type "Bluetooth" and select "Bluetooth and other devices settings" from the search results.
    3. In the Bluetooth settings window, make sure the Bluetooth toggle switch is set to "On" to enable Bluetooth functionality.
    4. You can also click on "Add Bluetooth or other device" to pair and connect your Bluetooth-enabled devices, such as headphones, speakers, or smartphones.

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Answers

  • Puraw
    Puraw ACE, Member Posts: 13,123 Trailblazer
    edited May 2023

    Yes, you have either a Broadcom BT adapter or a Atheros one. Check in System Information what BT you have

    You can download the latest BIOS and driver for your BT adapter here:

    https://www.acer.com/us-en/support/drivers-and-manuals?search=Aspire%20ES1-512&filter=global_download

    Are you on W8 or Windows10?

    I see 2 yellow exclamation marks under Unknow PCI device on that Device Manager picture. And your BIOS (Firmware) is not detected. Check also Hidden devices and expand each device maybe you see some more yellow exclamation marks.

    You have to uninstall all these problem drivers with Device manager and reboot. Windows10 will reinstall the drivers again.

    Let us know if you get the BT driver back that way. Type @Puraw at the top.

  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter

    I am showing another screenshot of my Network Adaptors here : I am on Windows 10 by the way.

    Here is another of the System Devices:

    Do I just uninstall all the ones with exclamation marks then and restart the computer ?

    I think it is Atheros but not too sure. Where can I find it?

    Thanks.

  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter

    Actually I can see it does have Qualcomm Atheros !

  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter

    Do I need to download ALL 3 of the Bios updates from that link you gave me and do I do that before or after I uninstall all the software marked yellow in my device list?

  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter

    Sorry to ask somany questions, I am a complete technie nerd 😊

    How do I update the Intel R HD Graphics latest software, a Driver Updater is telling me it is out of date.

    TIA🙂

  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter

    Sorry to be asking all these questions, I know I am a pest 🙂

    TIA

  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter
    edited May 2023

    Please can you help me with the questions above, I know I am a pest lol !🙂 By the way I downloaded the driver link you gave me for Bluetooth and managed to find it in my Settings Menu !😁

    TIA

  • Puraw
    Puraw ACE, Member Posts: 13,123 Trailblazer
    edited May 2023

    No worries, always better to ask😉

    Yes you have to uninstall all these bad drivers, unknown devices and greyed out drivers, expand the drivers (click on it) as they may not show when contracted, also click on Show Hidden devices (menu at the top) as there may be some bad drivers there too that need to be uninstalled. Also uninstall that BT driver you just installed as it probably ended up as an Unknown PCI Device. The way to install Bluetooth is Unzip the file you downloaded in a new folder you made and named BT Q or something like that and then look for the Setup.exe file and right click on that file and select Run as Administrator.

    I think what happened when you upgraded from W8 to Windows10 some drivers did not load properly.

    Don't install anything yet, let Widows10 search for the drivers and do the installing when booting again, only when that fails you install manually. like the Bios update, only the latest one, don't install more than 1 driver for the same adapter that is what's causing all the trouble and be very careful with the BIOS installation (called flashing) as that may brick your laptop if you do that wrong, ask if not sure, don't try things and then ask afterwards.

    After booting, open Device Manager and check if the yellow exclamation marks are still there, if so uninstall again.

    If Windows10 fails to install the Qualcomm Atheros BT driver and you see again Unknown PCI Devices again, uninstall that and download the BT driver from that Acer link I sent you.

    Yes, you need to update the Intel graphics driver too, Windows10 is supposed to do that if you updated to 22H2 version, if not your Windows is completely out of date and that's why your drivers are not installing automatically anymore. The Intel graphics driver update is a separate problem, but that will be last as that driver installed OK. Press the Windows key+R and type Winver, take a picture of that screen and post it, I want to see what Windows version you have.

    Last but not least: none of your questions have @Puraw at the top or you did not click on "Quote" at the bottom of my reply, If I don't get an alert that you posted something I won't be able to help.

  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter
    edited May 2023

    Crikey, lots to do, I will try to carry out everything you have said and get back to you. I am a bit nervous of installing Bios drivers as it seems if you install the wrong one your computer is up the spout, so to speak! By the way, the Windows 10 was upgraded to another version as my computer was failing to install new Windows updates and the technician who did the upgrade, I told him I didn't want Windows 11 but he said the Windows 10 version I was using, Windows had stopped supporting it so he upgraded it to another version of Windows 10. By the way, one of the drivers I need to uninstall is a Firmware driver, will this affect my getting back into my computer if I Restart the Computer? Also if I uninstall GPIO Controllers, will they reinstall when I restart the computer?

  • Puraw
    Puraw ACE, Member Posts: 13,123 Trailblazer

    I got an alert for that, so you are posting OK. Yes, you should be very nervous with BIOS, many bricked their PC, flashing a wrong BIOS version. Firmware is Windows10 name for BIOS (same thing), BIOS implies the old MBR format of Windows now we use UEFI format for our HDD and that is called Firmware, but everybody still keeps calling it BIOS 😀

    If your laptop model is on Acer's W11 compatible laptop list (below) you can upgrade to Windows 11 but stay away from that technician as he completely messed up your drivers.

    https://www.acer.com/us-en/support/windows/windows-11-compatibility.html

  • Hello! I would first try to uninstall all these problem drivers. Don't worry about the bios driver. You can also uninstall and delete the driver from the bios. This bios driver is only for updating the firmware through windows update.

    Then restart windows and then go to windows update, optional updates and select all drivers. Pay attention only to the firmware driver!

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  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter

    I am on Windows 10 though !😳 It was on my instructions that he didn't update to Windows 11 as I had heard it was not as good as Windows 10 and as I hate technie changes I told him to just upgrade it and not update it to Windows 11.

  • Puraw
    Puraw ACE, Member Posts: 13,123 Trailblazer

    If you check the Acer PC compatibly list, I sent, you will see your laptop model is NOT included, therefore talking about upgrading to W11 is moot.

  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter

    Oh I see, I have now deleted out the 3 GPIO drivers but they have all come back including the Intel R Trusted Execution Engine, and still have to delete out the Firmware driver, hopefully this will reinstall on restart? I will try to uninstall those other 4 drivers again.

    By the way how important is the DMA and PCI drivers if I uninstall those ?

  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter

    I have uninstalled these drivers as instructed by you and Puraw but they are still showing on Restart in the Device Manager. I have also gone into updates and optional updates and they are all installed.

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,044 Trailblazer

    Just in addition to all the above info that was supplied above, as I've added allot of Wi-Fi/BT cards to old Aspire laptops that only came with a Wi-FI card and added a Wi-Fi/BT card and it worked 100% and perfectly and what I did is all the below for years. Good luck and hope this addtional info helps you out.

    The Wi-Fi/BT card that your Aspire ES!-512 laptop has is the Qualcomm Atheros AR956x type card, this is a common and very good and reliable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth card from Qualcomm and all the old oem drivers for this card are at the Acer Drivers & Manuals of the Aspire ES1-512 page, which are the Atheros Bluetooth driver version 10.0.1.0 dated. 2015/07/21 and the Atheros Wireless Card driver version 10.0.0.318.

    Note: If you want the latest drivers for the Qualcomm Atheros AR956x Wi-Fi/BT card drivers, then look here at the Unofficial Qualcomm Atheros Drivers site under Wireless and Bluetooth Drivers Sections, as this site has the latest Win-10 drivers for your Qualcomm Atheros AR956x Wi-Fi/BT card and its the following:

    1. NEW Wireless Win-10 driver version - 10.0.3.462 driver model: win10-10.0.3.462-whql.zip is an update to the Acer oem driver.
    2. The latest Bluetooth drivers for your AR956x is the Acer oem version 10.0.1.0 dated. 2015/07/21 as that is the last for this card.




  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter
    edited May 2023

    Is it safe to go directly to the unofficial Qualcomm Atheros site to download the latest card drivers from there? The latest driver version I have for Qualcomm Atheros is 10.0.0.318 dated 17/5/2015. I downloaded the Bluetooth driver from the official Acer web site but can't seem to find where it is showing now. I don't think I downloaded the Atheros Wireless Card Driver also. Is the latest Bluetooth drivers you mention (version 10.0.1.0) as No. 2 also available on the Qualcomm Atheros site? By the way I took a screen shot of my latest Device Manager list and all the ones you see marked yellow I disabled or uninstalled and they have all come back again so what do I do now ?

    TIA☹️

  • TechNerd
    TechNerd Member Posts: 98 Troubleshooter
    edited May 2023

    I am stuck ! I decided to go ahead and followed your instructions and went to the Qualcomm Atheros unofficial website and downloaded the file 10.0.3.462 and followed the Install Step by going into the Powershell Administrator option and inputted the .\setup.bat but it just came back to the original first code line, no where to enter the key to start the drivers installation?

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,044 Trailblazer

    No don’t install this driver through PowerShell, do the following:

    Go into Device Manager > Network adaptors > Qualcomm Atheros 956x right click Properties > Driver > Update Driver > Browse my computer for driver > Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer > Have Disk and then go to the win10-10.0.3.462 folder and insert the .inf file that comes up,

    As that will update the wireless driver to the new version 10.0.3.462. you do the same with the Bluetooth driver but with the Bluetooth you have a “Setup .exe file" in the driver folder that you click as the Bluetooth software has to install and then you will get a Bluetooth icon in the right taskbar after you have rebooted the laptop. Try all that as it will work, and you will update your Wi-Fi driver and the Bluetooth driver also and both should work 100% after rebooting your laptop. If the Wi-Fi or BT doesn't engage press the F3 key as that is a key where you can turn Wi-Fi and BT on or off .

  • davidoliver
    davidoliver Member Posts: 3 New User
    Answer ✓

    Yes, the Acer Aspire E 15 Start ES1-512-C9QM model does have Bluetooth capability. The Acer Aspire E 15 series generally includes Bluetooth functionality, allowing you to connect compatible devices wirelessly. You can enable and use Bluetooth on your Acer laptop by following these steps:

    1. Go to the Windows Start menu by clicking on the Windows icon in the bottom left corner of your screen.
    2. In the search bar, type "Bluetooth" and select "Bluetooth and other devices settings" from the search results.
    3. In the Bluetooth settings window, make sure the Bluetooth toggle switch is set to "On" to enable Bluetooth functionality.
    4. You can also click on "Add Bluetooth or other device" to pair and connect your Bluetooth-enabled devices, such as headphones, speakers, or smartphones.