Only the Q30 headphone is the only one connected to bluetooth. I certainly have a long list of other bluetooth products, but only one can be connected at a time, so only the Q30. I just did a Windows update, including some drivers that were optional, and that improved the situation by maybe 50%, but random drop-outs are still occuring. My desktop is a pretty powerful custom build with an excellent mother board, but I believe that drivers are all updated through the Windows update process. By the way, turning on ANC does not affect the problem. It appears to all be on the processor and bluetooth end of things.
Life Q30, Windows 10, bluetooth is choppy
I noticed that the problem is most severe on You Tube videos vs. videos on msn.com. I have the spatial mode turned off on the speaker icon in the taskbar. The Soundcore Q30 is set as the default headphone. When I check videos on both the bluetooth and the direct connect mode, direct connect has no problems, leaving the bluetooth driver as the possible source of this problem. I f we don’t find a fix for existing drivers or hardware, I may be open to adding an external bluetooth service for the headphone, if such a thing exists.
Wasn’t the question.
Did you pair with anything else. Didn’t ask if connected with anything else.
Some report success with delete the device in settings and search for devices kicks windows to fix it’s problems.
Hey Folks, so I’m having the same issue here and I’ve made sure to set it to Stereo, and I did a reset to make sure it’s not paired with any other device.
Is it possible that my Bluetooth dongle just isn’t any good?
There’s so many possible causes we can speculate too much.
What I would do is a methodical testing of the headphones, the PC and you!
First see if the headphones are good, it’s got good Bluetooth reception. Delete the PC pairing, turn it’s Bluetooth off. Pair and connect with phone. Or try another phone or a tablet. Are there any issues? If not then the headphones are likely good and the focus is then PC or you.
Delete the phones pairing and turn phone Bluetooth off.
Can you borrow temporarily a different PC? Try it on another. See if the issue is there. If so then the issue has followed you, you are doing something in settings and so looks at Windows 10 tips to improve connection. If no issue then it’s the first PC likely suffers from interference.
PC interference can be from the WiFi, it’s on a similar frequency to Bluetooth. Anything you can do to put distance between WiFi, the PC casing, and Bluetooth then helps. Sometimes this is done as simply as use a different USB port.
I eradicated the awful Windows so can’t help on Windows issues, but on my Android my WiFi suffers when using Bluetooth, my fix is to 5Ghz WiFi so it’s not using the same range as Bluetooth 2.4Ghz. You could try that trick. Most routers have 5Ghz but it’s in the same SSID as 2.4Ghz so you have to rename the 5Ghz one to a different name, on device forget the connection and connect to the 5Ghz, to force it to 5Ghz.
In general:
- try to dedicate a bluetooth device to one thing (a phone, or a tablet, or a PC), as multiple pairing each can be causing random issues particularly as you find they connect when you didn’t know.
- Windows 10 try to wire connect, noting the Q30 doesn’t like wired, the Q35 likes wired better.
- Reduce the total overall bluetooth in use. Try to avoid using when you have an alternative (i.e. wired where possible).
- Reduce the total 2.4Ghz Wifi use. This is to go around home and see what devices can see the 5Ghz SSID and if so then forget the existing 2.4Ghz connection and connect to 5Ghz.
- Use a Powerline adapter pair to stretch Wifi to further corner of house and in that corner try to use 5Ghz Wifi. The more expensive Powerline adapters have 5Ghz. You use a non-Wifi Ethernet Powerline at the router, then a Wifi Powerline in the dark distant corners in home.
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Thanks for the reply, lots of great info!
So in terms of the headphones, they’re absolutely fine, I listened to a bunch of music and Youtube vids on both my tablet and my phone, so I know they work fine (and are awesome).
I did try and delete the pairing several times and it didn’t fix the issue. In fact, I even got a different bluetooth dongle and it wouldn’t even connect to that one just my old one (Even after I reset the headphones, which is super weird).
I think your advice on trying it on another PC makes a lot of sense and I really should have considered that already. I can give it a shot on my laptop and see how it goes and if it improves anything.
Also, your point about signal interference may be an issue. I mean, my router is about two meters/six and a half feet away from the Bluetooth dongle, but it still might be causing some issues. I’ll see about switching it off completely and if that helps eliminate the choppiness.
All that being said, I don’t think it’s the signal because the choppiness seems to get worse on YouTube while with VLC it’s not as bad, which would point it to being a computer issue.
And yeah, Windows is definitely annoying, but since I game a lot, I’m kinda stuck with that unless I want to emulate or dual-boot ><. But yeah, thanks a ton, I’ll definitely try all the stuff mentioned!
That implies the reset hasn’t worked. One trick is to reset, turn off. Wait 10 minutes. Turn on. I’ve seen that reported helps in some situations.
You also have to wrap quite a brutal purging particularly for Windows 10. In total its delete Windows pairing, turn bluetooth off. Turn PC off. Reset Q30, turn off. Wait 10 minutes. Turn on. PC on, bluetooth on, pair. I think it remembers sometimes the previous profile when it shouldn’t. A similar issue has been seen with Android and wipe cache fixes.
Well that to me implies it is the signal as YouTube is streaming media over Wifi, while VLC is off local media not Wifi right?
If you do track it down to 2.4Ghz Wifi - problem goes away when Wifi disabled (router off, PC is playing local media) then the 5Ghz trick should work but 5Ghz needs short distance or no walls between source and destination so then you have to spend effort / money, if that’s the actual issue then we’ll PM as its quite involved and nothing to do with Soundcore.
If your bluetooth is 4.2 then that has a 1Mbit max, if you also have 2.4Ghz interference (Wifi or other bluetooth streaming nearby (neighbour?) and if the media is high bitrate, then you’ve created a hostile environment and one of them has to be improved - Wifi to 5Ghz or change bluetooth to 5.0 which has 2Mbit max, Powerline, etc.
Static desktop tower PCs are best put onto Ethernet anyway - lower latency and the bandwidth is not consuming Wifi spectrum, that can be done by either having PC and router near enough for Ethernet, or if that cant’t be done then Powerline starter kit (two of them, one plugged into router, one into PC).[quote=“ominos, post:9, topic:1584974, full:true”]
Thanks for the reply, lots of great info!
So in terms of the headphones, they’re absolutely fine, I listened to a bunch of music and Youtube vids on both my tablet and my phone, so I know they work fine (and are awesome).
I did try and delete the pairing several times and it didn’t fix the issue. In fact, I even got a different bluetooth dongle and it wouldn’t even connect to that one just my old one (Even after I reset the headphones, which is super weird).
I think your advice on trying it on another PC makes a lot of sense and I really should have considered that already. I can give it a shot on my laptop and see how it goes and if it improves anything.
Also, your point about signal interference may be an issue. I mean, my router is about two meters/six and a half feet away from the Bluetooth dongle, but it still might be causing some issues. I’ll see about switching it off completely and if that helps eliminate the choppiness.
All that being said, I don’t think it’s the signal because the choppiness seems to get worse on YouTube while with VLC it’s not as bad, which would point it to being a computer issue.
And yeah, Windows is definitely annoying, but since I game a lot, I’m kinda stuck with that unless I want to emulate or dual-boot ><. But yeah, thanks a ton, I’ll definitely try all the stuff mentioned!
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Well that to me implies it is the signal as YouTube is streaming media over Wifi, while VLC is off local media not Wifi right?
I’m connected using ethernet, so it shouldn’t play a factor. Even so, VLC still has quite a bit of choppiness, and from what I remember trying last night, tabbing away from VLC and doing other things increased the choppiness, so I’m sort of leaning to it being PC related. Which is weird because I realistically shouldn’t be having an issue given my specs (i7, 64gigs of ram, GTX 1080, etc).
I’m actually not sure of the speed or specifics of my dongle. I got it ages ago and I wouldn’t even know how to check that. I am also somewhat leaning to this being the issue, I mean the dongle is maybe 2-3 years old, and it’s generic, so it’s possibly just terrible quality.
You wrote you have another dongle and would not work?
Well try this set of steps.
- Delete pairing
- Turn off bluetooth.
- Turn PC off.
- Reset Q30.
- Turn Q30 off.
- Wait 10 minutes
- Turn PC on.
- Plug in the other dongle, let drivers load.
- Turn Q30 on.
- Pair.
Fact you’re Ethernet connected removes most of the ideas of Wifi interference local do you, but you could still be in a 2.4Ghz congested area running BT 4.2 and your phone is BT 5 which is double the bandwidth. So if your old dongle is BT 4.2 , using a newer one which is BT 5 can effectively make your PC work as well as your phone does now. So getting it to work via move brutal steps above may be the fix.
Good luck.
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So I actually ended up returning the Bluetooth dongle that wasn’t working, so I’ll have to get a new one before trying that process.
Also, I did some testing with my Wifi both on and off, and there wasn’t really any difference in the choppiness, although I noticed today that it’s not as bad as it was yesterday, which is weird since I didn’t do anything.
I think I’m ultimately going to have to find a way to get me a proper BT 5 dongle as I feel that instinctively the bitrate is the main issue here, especially since I don’t even know what my old dongle is, might not even be BT 4, so who knows?
Thanks a lot for the help so far though. Hopefully a new, proper dongle will help!
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If it was better for no good reason on different days then that suggests you may just have interference nearby.
Even though your PC is wired, try to move as much traffic possible to 5Ghz WiFi in the area. Also if your router is near a wall with a vertical metal in it (electrical, water) then move it away, as the wall will be producing a resonance.
Probably what is happening is there’s a lot of 2.4Ghz interference (you also get it from cordless phones and microwave ovens) near the PC and the PC is using BT 4.2
I honestly don’t have any other interference nearby other than the router. I don’t have a cordless phone working, or any other sort of electronic nearby. I also don’t really have much traffic going to the router through WiFi, other than my two phones, but even so, when I switched the router off I didn’t see a difference.
Could be the neighbors, I live in an apartment building, so it could be coming from upstairs (although it’s just a bedroom so there shouldn’t be much interception).
It probably is an issue with interference, yeah, and it seems only BT 5 will really fix the issue sadly 
Did you try a different PC like laptop yet? If that works then compare settings for a clue.
BT 5 has twice the bandwidth so is half as vulnerable to interference.
I’ve remembered a Windows trick which worked in this situation. Was disable low energy mode of Bluetooth. Searching…
I remember someone with Soundcore speaker did this and solved this BT 4.2 stuttering issue. Searching…
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Try this it stops q30 using BLE.
Take a snapshot before you do it so easier to roll back.
May be the magic answer for you. Delete pairing, disable BLE then pair, it uses more power to overcome interference.
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So sadly, my dongle is so old it doesn’t even have BT LE XD. That’s why I think it’s the dongle, it’s probably too old. In fact, I’m looking it up now and BT 4.0 is when LE came out, so this probably BT 3.0.
Put the dongle on end of a USB extension cord? Every little bit helps.
You can also lower bitrate and codec in settings audio to make it choppy less often pending postman.
The dongle is about maybe . . . like less than 2-3 feet? It’s on the front panel of my PC and I’m sitting next to it, so any closer and I’d have to wrap the USB cord around my neck XD
The idea about bitrate and codec settings is a pretty good idea though, at least it might be another tool to help diagnose the issue. Actually, I’m going to try and connect to my laptop now and see what the deal is.
Not just distance, it can knock off a resonance if you’re lucky.
Alright, so I spent about 30minutes on my laptop with the headphones at about 2 meter distance and there was zero choppiness.
I also checked and the BT on my laptop is at least BT 4 since it has LE (which I kept on with no problems). So at this point I’m almost completely convinced that the issue is my desktop’s dongle.
One thing I’ve noticed with a few different Bluetooth/wireless headsets on Win10 is that Cortana uses the microphone almost at all times by default, which puts the wireless headset into handsfree communication mode instead of the media player mode. This results in lower bitrate and generally crappy sounding music. You can usually tell when your headset switches modes because the volume slider will appear for a second, but with Cortana listening on the mic for commands the device never switches back.
Just for the heck of it, try disabling Cortana’s microphone access (which will give you the stupid “privacy setting are preventing an application from using your microphone” message). If that works and you don’t use Cortana, you can look into disabling Cortana on startup.
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