[Bootcamp Windows 10] Bluetooth Headphones Stuttering

O

ODouglas

When I connect my bluetooth headphones to my Macbook Pro, the audio sounds like a badly scratched CD. The problem worsens when I also connect my Apple bluetooth keyboard. I've tried multiple fixes and nothing seems to work. Details follow.


Set up and devices:

  • Machine: Macbook Pro 2019
  • OS: Windows 10 Enterprise Version 1909 (OS Build 18363.720), installed using Boot Camp Assistant
  • bluetooth headphones: Beats Studio3
  • bluetooth keyboard: Apple Keyboard (no number pad) Model No. A1314
  • bluetooth mouse: Logitech M720 Triathlon


Process of elimination points to keyboard. In trying to isolate my issue, I tried connecting many subset combinations of the three bluetooth devices and my WiFi. I tried in various orders, with WiFi both on and off, and with both media streaming over WiFi and stored on my local hard drive. In every situation there was usually *a small amount* of stuttering, and connecting the keyboard *always* made it much much worse. No other device seemed to affect the stuttering.


Other posts seem related, still don't solve my problem. There are many posts on this and Windows forums about shotty bluetooth. I'll link two I found most helpful:

The main thing I learned from these is that this faulty bluetooth issue has to do with old, bad Windows drivers AND the fact that Windows appears to prevent other drivers from being installed. In particular, most information I found points to the issue being with the driver for the Broadcom 802.11ac Network Adapter; some drivers do not allow for a setting called "bluetooth collaboration". This is true of the driver on my system, that setting does not appear on the Advanced tab. A picture of the driver's version on my system is attached.
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The fixes recommended in the articles I read did not work. The common suggestions is to use Boot Camp Assistant to reinstall the Windows Support Software, per this page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204923. This has no effect, the driver version remains the same (even before I restart Windows). I learned that upon restarting, sometimes Windows will reinstall the bad driver, which it thinks is best. I tried to address this by turning this feature off as in: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2500967/how-to-stop-windows-7-automatically-installing-drivers. No difference.


Even if I could fix the Broadcom Network Adapter, this doesn't mesh with my diagnosis: keyboard. Could the problem be with the driver Windows has chosen for my keyboard? It is from 2006!!! See attached image.

18e30728-7cd5-4c7d-a13e-7d41af81e92c?upload=true.png


If anyone can help me get to the bottom of this, I would really appreciate it. I would love to use my headphones when I log onto the Windows side of my computer.

Thank you!


PS - I have also posted on the Apple support forums.

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