wifi drops to zero when using Bluetooth

g2c · Jun 20, 2014

Hello,

I am facing a strange phenomenon on my new Asus notebook: whenever i play music via Bluetooth speakers, the wifi BW is dropping and may go to zero. If the music comes from an Internet radio, it has the effect of interrupting the music for few seconds as in attached screenshot.

If a download a long file from another computer -say HP running Filezilla server- and i play the music via BT on Asus -running the client-, i can see as reported by the server a drop of the transfer speed, down to zero, whenever i press "play" on Asus and if i press "pause" the transfer speed is going back to the maximum of ~ 12Mb/s

When the download is via the UTP adapter, no speed drop is noticeable.

Your help or insight or guidance will be greatly appreciated

Windows 8
Asus Zen notebook ux31la

LoganG · Jun 20, 2014

I guess your bluetooth and wifi devices can be operating on or near the same channel. Why don't you try and manually change your wifi channel to see if it doesn't clear things up.

g2c · Jun 20, 2014

Thanks for bothering but no, the phenomenon is not correlated to the channel. Whats more, NetMeter crashes when asked to monitor the built-in wifi. With same setup on usb dongle wifi the phenomenon disappears and NetMeter works just fine. Thanks again

hajalie24 · Jun 21, 2014

I don't know the right term for it or how it works exactly, but some devices share something with the bluetooth 2.4ghz connection causing it. I know my tablets do it, I'll have to test my laptop (intel 7260ac card). Getting a dual band 5ghz router and connecting to that (assuming your laptop supports dual band) will solve the issue.

Also, if your laptop supports it you might be able to change the mini pcie wifi card in there.

Getting a small bluetooth dongle (they're like a dollar on ebay) will fix it too.

g2c · Jun 21, 2014

hajalie24 said:
I don't know the right term for it or how it works exactly, but some devices share something with the bluetooth 2.4ghz connection causing it. I know my tablets do it, I'll have to test my laptop (intel 7260ac card). Getting a dual band 5ghz router and connecting to that (assuming your laptop supports dual band) will solve the issue.

Also, if your laptop supports it you might be able to change the mini pcie wifi card in there.

Getting a small Bluetooth dongle (they're like a dollar on ebay) will fix it too.

Thanks, My laptop supports dual band but not my router. Anyway, given that NetMeter crashes when monitoring the Lap's wifi seems to show that it is not an interference issue. Yes i can use external components such as wifi or Bluetooth dongles but i rather have it work on it's own as any (new) laptop does. I have a Pavilion lap, An Intel mobo desktop a moto tab and an droid phone: none of these have any noticeable wifi bw reduction when playing via Bluetooth. I am despairing

Automata · Jun 21, 2014

It sounds like the wifi and Bluetooth are handled by the same wireless card and it only lets you use one. If updating the drivers doesn't help, your test with an external USB wireless card proves that it can't do both quite convincingly.

g2c · Jun 21, 2014

Thanks. I have some difficulties to admit that this notebook has such a limitation: Would asus make a $2000 worth notebook with Bang & Olufsen audio which cannot play internet radio to a BT speaker? And why is NetMeter crashing whenever asked to monitor the built in wifi while it works just fine with other Ethernet i/f such as the builtin wired one and a usb wifi dongle?

Automata · Jun 21, 2014

Back in 2006, I bought a gaming laptop for more than 3000 and they couldn't even design the cooling on the graphics card good enough to prevent the card from dying and provided virtually zero support. So yeah, I can believe it.

The crashing of the program makes perfect sense. It is attached to the network device and the device is yanked out of under the program (disabling the card).

Find the model of the wireless card and look up the specifications for it. If the company says it can do both simultaneously, go to Asus.

\dev\goat · Jun 21, 2014

At my old house I had my HTPC running off of a USB wifi adapter, plugged in to a 3 foot cable so it could sit on the shelf next to the other components.

I bought one of those sound bars with a bluetooth subwoofer, and after hooking it up, the subwoofer would turn on and off randomly and my wifi signal dropped to 1-2 bars on the htpc.

After banging my head and googling a bit, I moved the usb wifi adapter to the shelf above the tv, and wifi signal went back up to 5 bars and the subwoofer quit acting up.

I don't think wifi and bluetooth speakers should be in close proximity to each other =\

g2c · Jun 22, 2014

thideras said:
Back in 2006, I bought a gaming laptop for more than 3000 and they couldn't even design the cooling on the graphics card good enough to prevent the card from dying and provided virtually zero support

Unbelievable; and how did the story end?

thideras said:
and the device is yanked out of under the program

Can you please say what you think precisely happening? In italic below is the evnt viewer log.
The wifi is an intel thing, in blue below. It has 6 drivers versions higher than mine but i am a bit reluctant to play with it.

thideras said:
go to Asus.

The machine was three times in asus repair lab and returned either as is or with re-installed software. I am unsure whether they now what a computer is.

Network adapters
Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network]
Bluetooth Device (RFCOMM Protocol TDI)
|ntel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260
Microsoft Kernel Debug Network Adapter

The event viewer logs

General tab
Faulting application name: NetMeter.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x2a425e19
Faulting module name: NetMeter.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x2a425e19
Exception code: 0xc000041d
Fault offset: 0x000042c0
Faulting process id: 0x1834
Faulting application start time: 0x01cf8d176c3e93f3
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\NetMeter\NetMeter.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\NetMeter\NetMeter.exe
Report Id: ab1a34df-f90a-11e3-be8a-5c514f126ded
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Detail tab

-
EventData

NetMeter.exe
0.0.0.0
2a425e19
NetMeter.exe
0.0.0.0
2a425e19
c000041d
000042c0
1834
01cf8d176c3e93f3
C:\Program Files (x86)\NetMeter\NetMeter.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\NetMeter\NetMeter.exe
ab1a34df-f90a-11e3-be8a-5c514f126ded

g2c · Jun 22, 2014

i updated the driver of the Intel AC-7260 to the latest to date 17.0.3.2: no noticeable difference, same NetMeter crash

Automata · Jun 22, 2014

g2c said:
Unbelievable; and how did the story end?

After two different laptops, I ended up with one that just barely didn't kill itself. I ended up selling it. The issue was never truly resolved unless you count me buying a Thinkpad T60 as "fixing the issue".

g2c said:
Can you please say what you think precisely happening? In italic below is the evnt viewer log.

What I said is exactly what I think is happening. The program is using a resource (wifi) that is suddenly unavailable. The program crashes because it isn't told how to handle that situation.

Stand on a rug with your eyes closed. Have a friend yank on the rug really hard. You crash. Program does the same thing. You were using a resource that is suddenly unavailable.

g2c · Jun 22, 2014

thideras said:
The program is using a resource (wifi) that is suddenly unavailable.

The resource is unavailable? hum you suggest that NetMeter accesses some internal registers of the chip and that the chip does not reply? e.g a short in an address line or a select signal? BTW, i tried WireShark on internal wifi and it does not crash :-/

Automata · Jun 22, 2014

No, it likely is attached to the wifi card, it becomes unavailable, and the program is literally not written to handle that type of exception. Wireshark, on the other hand, is written to handle that exception and it doesn't crash.

g2c · Jun 22, 2014

thideras said:
No, it likely is attached to the wifi card, it becomes unavailable, and the program is literally not written to handle that type of exception. Wireshark, on the other hand, is written to handle that exception and it doesn't crash.

it does make sense though i don't see what is it that is becoming unavailable. In practice, i guess the program calls the driver to get say, ByteCount the call returns a number and the program uses it for the computation of the BW etc. In your scenario, the driver returns a value causing the program to crash?

Automata · Jun 22, 2014

g2c said:
it does make sense though i don't see what is it that is becoming unavailable. In practice, i guess the program calls the driver to get say, ByteCount the call returns a number and the program uses it for the computation of the BW etc. In your scenario, the driver returns a value causing the program to crash?

If only the wireless or the bluetooth can be active at once, it makes perfect sense. Windows likely drops the driver/module from the kernel, which is what is actually causing the crash.

I'm only speculating from my experience in programming/Windows. To know for sure, you will need to get the model of the wireless card to check its specification.

wifi drops to zero when using Bluetooth

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