I need bluetooth drivers win 7 64 bit

[halifa]

I need bluetooth drivers for win 7 64 bit. Nothing supplied by Broadcom allows me to pair speakers with the notebook, and the option "allow a device to connect" is greyed out.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

What model wifi adapter does your notebook come with?

If you don't know, go to the device manager, click to expand the Network Adapters device manager category, and there you will find the name and model number of the wireless network adapter.

[halifa]

I have two: a Personal Area Network adapter (located on a Generic Bluetooth adapter), driver version 6.1.7600.16385; and an RFCOMM Protocol TDI on the same generic adapter and the same driver version. I have no trouble with a Win 7 Toshiba Satellite 670D which almost connected itself to my speakers, but I notice the online forums are full of complaints of Bluetooth issues with HP Win 7 notebooks. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

I can't help you unless you provide the information I requested.

I need to know the model wifi adapter your noteobook has and I told you where to find it.

The wifi adapter is listed under the Network Adapters device manager category, not the Bluetooth category.

The bluetooth adapter is part of the wifi adapter if the notebook comes with bluetooth.

I can tell you exactly what the problem you are having is...you do not have a bluetooth driver installed.

You should be seeing the same model bluetooth adapter as the model wifi adapter your notebook has.

When you see a generic bluetooth adapter, that means only the default Windows driver is installed, and that usually never gets the bluetooth to work.

So, you are going to continue to not be able to connect to bluetooth if you don't install the correct bluetooth driver, and that isn't HP's fault.

[halifa]

Sorry for the confusion  - it's a Ralink RT3090 802.11b/g/n WiFi adapter. I didn't say it was anyone's fault - although it's a fact I had no problem with the Toshiba - it's just remarkable how many Bluetooth issues (many similar to mine), and what a high proportion, are reported with HP Win 7 notebooks.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Ok, no problem.

You need the Ralink bluetooth driver to get the bluetooth to work...

Ralink/Motorola Bluetooth Adapter Driver

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp55001-55500/sp55063.exe

[halifa]

Many thanks - finally! The setup takes its time, and only when the sound playback looks like this

does sound come out of the speakers. I don't need to know why this happened, but just to note again that the Toshiba laptop seems to do everything by itself. Thanks again for the essential hint, as I'd pretty much given up.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I don't know much about bluetooth, but the Ralink/Motorola bluetooth adapter is an old version Bluetooth.

I think v3.0.

So, I don't know if the bluetooth versions matter as far as support for newer bluetooth hardware.

After 3.0 came 4.0, and now they are on 4.2

So, if your Toshiba is BT 4.0, that may be why it works easier.

[David_J_W]

Bluetooth 5.0 (marketed as "Bluetooth 5") was ratified in 2016, with the first commercially available Bluetooth 5 product being the Samsung Galaxy S8 phone in early 2017. Bluetooth 5 is slowly finding its way into the latest notebooks - the ZBook Studio x360 G5 I am writing this reply on has an Intel Wireless-AC 9560 setup which supports Bluetooth 5.

Backward compatibility on Bluetooth tends to be pretty good, though you only get the lowest common denominator of what both devices support for obvious reasons. There are, however, some hard rules. Both devices must support a particular Bluetooth profile to use that profile. If a device lacks Bluetooth LE (marketed as "Bluetooth Smart") support then it cannot communicate with other Bluetooth LE devices. Bluetooth LE is becoming increasingly important as certain classes of devices are moving to Bluetooth LE, notably including Bluetooth mice and keyboards. Bluetooth LE launched as part of Bluetooth 4.0.

It is rare to come across a computer with Bluetooth hardware older than 3.0 still in frontline service. This is fortunate as pairing got much easier from 3.0 onwards.

@halifa's screenshot appears to show a Bluetooth audio device supporting one or both of hands free profile and headset profile (that's the "hands-free audio" device) and A2DP (that's the "audio" device). HFP / HSP is mono audio in and mono audio out for phone calls and the like. A2DP is unidirectional stereo audio for streaming music and similar tasks. Many Bluetooth speakers support both; they can be used as a hands free for a phone as well as for playing music. For the likes of Skype you want the HFP / HSP device, and for playing music you want the A2DP device.

Bluetooth is less confusing than it once was, but it still has a way to go to become truly user friendly.