Recently I’ve changed my Bluetooth setup. Removed (as in disabled in the BIOS) the internal Intel AX200 BT and switched to a TP-Link UB500 USB dongle. All devices connect without issues, but I’m having audio issues with my Bose Quietcomfort 35 headphones. The audio is very choppy, hardly making it for 2 seconds without interrupting.
On the other hand, my other headphones, Jabra Elite 75t, work just fine with that dongle. Also mouse and keyboard show no issues.
I’ve never had issues with the Bose headphones or that dongle before. What could cause this? Dongle is 30cm from the headphones, connected through the monitor USB hub, clear airpath. But the issue also occurs when connected directly to a USB port on the machine.
Both paired together, or were the Bose headphones actually communicating with the onboard Intel controller? Does normal service resume if you re-enable the onboard one?
There is something else I should mention: does this “choppiness” reduce or go away if you move further from the dongle?
It’s possible the devices are too close to negotiate a low enough RX/TX power level to avoid signal overloading/clipping/reflections and other distortion maybe caused by nearby devices with a stronger signal. I’ve seen this happen on occasion.
It’s also possible the other devices (KB, mouse) aren’t so good at negotiating a BT connection (apart from the aforementioned possible signal strength issue) and this might be enough to disrupt the audio stream. I’ve certainly had this with file transfers, but I wouldn’t really expect it with input devices, though.
While not seemingly directly related to your question: although the device claims up to 7 devices, I suspect only one of those can use A2DP at a time (keeping your onboard card enabled will allow a second simultaneous A2DP feed to another set of headphones or speakers). But in this case you would get muffled audio, although probably also with some dropouts, if it’s set to HFP.
They were communicating through the onboard controller. I have in fact never used them together, as far as I can remember. I will try this combination on Windows 11.
My apologies guys, it was the combination of this dongle with these headphones. They work fine with another dongle. No Manjaro issue here.
(FYI: TP-Link UB400 is the one that works)
