Fixing Bluetooth Personal Area Network Disconnections in Surface Pro 4

I love the Surface Pro as you can probably tell from my previous posts. The only teething problem that I’ve been suffering was the bluetooth disconnections when the tablet is tethered to my iPhone, I suspect this will happen to different devices as well. This machine is mostly used on the go, mostly on the train, on the car or in a cafe. Therefore internet tethering is pretty important.

You might say that I can totally get tethered internet through shared WiFi, but with the iPhone it’s a pretty annoying ordeal as I have to open the settings page to get the shared WiFi discoverable. Hence I rely on Bluetooth tethering or in other words Bluetooth personal area network. The fact that it disconnects in less than 1 minute after connection is a total productivity killer. It took me several weeks to finally find out what needs (in between ignoring it and half given up) and finally I found the actual fix. So let’s share this with you all.

Disable Basic Bluetooth Device Power Saving

The first thing to do, which is probably quite commonly known is to turn off the device bluetooth power saving.

1. Open the device manager (you can press start or click on the cortana button and type device manager)
2. Then navigate to the bluetooth hardware. In my Surface’s case, this is the “Marvel Avastar Bluetooth Radio Adapter”
3. Right click on it then click on properties
4. Click on the power management tab
5. Then disable the allow the computer to turn off this device option

Disable Power Saving for the iPhone HID Device

This step is the one that most people missed. Basically while the bluetooth radio device no longer turns off, the iPhone hardware connection itself is turning itself off!

So follow the steps below:

1. Go to devices and printers, again press the windows button or cortana and search for devices and printers
2. Locate your device and right click on properties
3. 
4. Once the device property screen is up, click on the Hardware tab
5. 
6. Choose the Audio/Video Remote Control HiD
7. Click on the Properties button
8. Then click on the Change Settings button
9. Click on power management then disable the Allow the computer turn off this device to save power

When you have done the above, then that’s it. You got a stable Bluetooth PAN connection. I have the same issue with my Bluetooth earphones and I haven’t try the fix above, perhaps it will also fix it. Have fun!

Categorised in: General Computing