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Surface Pro 3 Bluetooth Driver Fix

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I recently bought my wife a Surface Pro 3 that replaced her old and dying MacBook Pro.  Unfortunately, she has experienced the same WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity problems as everyone else.  Obviously, this is quite embarrassing coming from someone who works for Microsoft and convinced a long time Apple product user to switch.  Thus, I spend quite a bit of time fixing her computer so that it behaves appropriately.

Last night, her Bluetooth just stopped working.  When I went into device manager, there was no Bluetooth device to be seen.  Under Other Devices  I saw something like "Bluetooth and WLAN adapter".  After uninstalling the device drivers like every good Windows users knows how to do, I clicked "Update Drivers."  Unfortunately, I was met with "This device is not configured correctly. (code 1)."  I opened up the properties page for said device and it revealed that drivers were missing for the device. 

Admittedly, I was stumped.  I had never had to do anything additional for the plethora of Windows devices I have used or maintained over the years.  I downloaded the Surface Pro 3 driver pack from the Microsoft website.  I navigated to the Marvell\bt folder, right-clicked the INF file, and clicked "Install."  I went back to device manager, selected "update drivers", and manually selected the Marvell AVASTAR drivers I just installed.  Even this didn't work.  Now, I'm completely stumped.

However, it dawned on me as I searched the web for solutions to this problem that devices support a variety of drivers.  This is why BIOS can be shown on your high-tech monitor even though it hasn't loaded the more advanced drivers.  Your monitor supports some type of standard monitor drivers that everyone knows.  I don't know the specifics but I bet the functionality is quite simple but it succeeds in at least showing something on the screen.  Luckily, there is something similar to this for Bluetooth devices.

Enter the "Generic Bluetooth Driver."  Any respectable Bluetooth device would support such a driver with basic functionality.  I used this driver and it worked!  Here's how:

  1. Hit the windows key to get to the Win8 start screen
  2. Type "Device manager" and hit enter when it shows up in the search panel
  3. Find your Bluetooth device
    1. It may still have the bad drivers in use.  It would then be found under "Bluetooth".  Right-click every item under that node and select uninstall.  (DO NOT SELECT DELETE)
    2. If you already uninstalled the drivers, you will most likely find the device under "Other devices"
  4. Right-click the Bluetooth device and select "Update drivers"
  5. Select "Browse my computer for driver software"
  6. Select "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer"
  7. Select "Bluetooth" and hit next
  8. Select "GenericAdapter" under Manufacturer
  9. Select "Generic Bluetooth Adapter" under Model
  10. Click next until it has installed the drivers

This should fix your problem!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2015
    Excellent article - thank you, this helped me! :)

  • Anonymous
    April 17, 2015
    THANK YOU I spend hours online trying to find a solution and you just saved my surface pro 3... Thanks

  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2015
    this helped so much thanks!!!!

  • Anonymous
    June 02, 2015
    thank you very much! your help was so useful and so better than microsoft support...!

  • Anonymous
    August 05, 2015
    I was having this problem on my Surface Pro 2 after I upgraded to Windows 10, I tried lots of things but nothing worked, and your solution finally fixed my problem! I can't thank you enough.

  • Anonymous
    August 31, 2015
    Thank you Ryan!!

  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2015
    Hi Ryan Mine is a Surface 3, not Pro but unable to receive files from paired device.  Will try your method and hopefully it works

  • Anonymous
    September 06, 2015
    You post is very much appreciated.  Saved me a lot of time and effort.  Thank you.