Stuttering bluetooth audio

[dnmartin98]

I've had my Stream 7 for just shy of a month now. It's an awesome machine. We picked one up to replace an aging laptop that connected to our audio equipment for running XBOX Music, Pandora, etc. I've been one of the lucky ones with no 3.5mm jack buzzing issues. The Stream 7 has been sitting on a table, connected to my amp, running with Xbox Music open all day, picking up my music collection from my network drives, streaming from my cloud collection all with no bother at all. When I sit down next to it, I'll pop open a few web pages in IE with no issue at the same time. For $99 it's fantastic.

And then.....I decided to de-wire a little through Bluetooth. I have a Logitech Bluetooth audio adaptor connected to my Amp that allows me to stream music from my Lumia 920, Surface RT, and other devices. Works great. So, I pair the Stream 7 to it and the Bluetooth performance is horrible. I've got stuttering, drop outs, etc. I tried my Bluebuds on it to, just to rule out the Logitech adaptor, and I get stuttering and drop outs on those too. Yep, all the drivers on the Stream 7 are up to date as well.

It doesn't seem particularly related to doing anything either. It will happen if I switch apps while it's playing, and then other times it will splutter and stumble just when it's sitting there all alone with nothing else going on but Pandora streaming from IE (Modern and Desktop), or Xbox Music. Can't seem to find a cause. Processor usage isn't overly high according to resource monitor either. Last night I did a refresh to see if that fixed it. Still the same.

I can't be the only one using Bluetooth audio on this little gem. But I haven't seen anyone else with this issue and I can't fix it, despite all my tinkering with it. I'm reluctant to do a factory reset on it as I recall that also means I have to swap it in as a new device in Xbox Music again, and that's another 30 days.

Any ideas from folks and who else is streaming audio over Bluetooth with their Stream 7?

Cheers,

DavidM

 

[stephen_az]

Is the music playing off internal storage or a MicroSD card? That is the most common thing I find affecting performance on any tablet or hybrid. Beyond that, I would suggest then turning off everything connected to either the Logitech adapter or the tablet - this includes non-Bluetooth devices and popping out any MicroSD card that might be in the tablet. If the problem goes away, add things back until you can see which is causing the problem. If the problem is still present, it could be that HP went cheap on the Bluetooth adapter to keep the cost down. It certainly happens - even though it has done nothing to keep cost down Microsoft is still using lousy Marvell WIFI and Bluetooth components in SP3 that have been the source of complaints since the release of the first Surface RT and SPs.

BTW, if you end up with phantom devices locking up the four Xbox Music activations, Xbox support can reset the system on their end. They have done that for me several times. Just don't use phone support since they have no idea how to do it. You need to use the chat support option. Essentially all they do is verify your identity, get a brief explanation from you as to the problem (simple as saying your activations are tied to devices that have been reset or replaced) and then wipe all activations.

 

[dnmartin98]

That's good to know about the music pass activations if I need it....

As for the other points, the music is streaming. Pandora is web based, and the Xbox music files are coming from another networked machine in the homegroup via a library. So there is no sd card or anything like that involved. The Stream has nothing else connected to it at all. I'm guessing it could be an issue with both radios working at once (wifi and Bluetooth) but that would be showing up for others too I would think

 

[link68759]

It's entirely possible the Bluetooth unit in your stream is bad, or that the unit is incredibly weak by design. I'd demo out your Bluetooth streaming on another stream- they should have display models in the MS store.

 

[robjared05]

I had the same exact problem and I found another device in the room with bluetooth turned on. When I turned off the bluetooth on the other device the HP Stream 7 worked fine.

 

[dnmartin98]

I wish it were that. There are now 11 pages of posts on WIFI and Bluetooth issues on the HP community pages about this with the Stream7. You can find them all here if you are interested in following along! There appears to be no end in sight..... Re: Stream 7 wifi drops - Page 11 - HP Support Forum - 4762494

Cheers,

DavidM