Can high CPU usage cause Bluetooth audio dropout?

[kol12]

I have installed a USB Bluetooth dongle to a laptop to transmit audio to a wireless speaker. The connection is exhibiting dropouts and loud pops. The laptop (Asus X55A) hardware only just seems to be keeping up with modern Windows 10. I am not 100% sure but dropout's appear like they may be occurring when the CPU usage spikes very high. If this is not the issue then I guess that I have a Bluetooth connection issue. Would appreciate any assistance.

 

[webworkings]

If you have a lot running on the device (using system resources) or your internet connection is fluctuating a lot (which happens) then either of these could cause your problem.

Try it when you are doing nothing else (running nothing else) on the computer and listening to something on the computer, not something online. If it happens then, the problem is probably your Bluetooth. If it doesn't happen then you need to test if it happens only when your resources are low or only when you are listening to something online. This will help you determine if you have to keep more resources free or if you need to contact your carrier/service provider about the fluctuating connection.

 

[kol12]

It's the Bluetooth connection that is the issue so not an internet bandwidth issue... I thought it might have been at first. The Bluetooth audio skipping and popping is occurring on all of our devices that are transmitting via Bluetooth. Laptop, Tablet and Smartphone, so doesn't appear to be a particular device issue but more of a widespread Bluetooth issue.

All of the devices are in very close proximity to the wireless speaker (Deon Heos 1) so signal strength should hardly be an issue. The modem/router is also in close proximity that the tablet occasionally connects to with wifi and there is also a cordless phone. The Bluetooth still skips with wifi connections disabled. I have not tried removing the power to the router completely. I'm not sure what else the problem can be but possibly it is with the wireless speaker itself? Maybe it should be reset?

 

[kol12]

The dropouts seem pretty definitely associated to the CPU having too higher load on it. Rebooting the Tablet with no other apps but Youtube playing audio results in an uninterrupted signal. The Laptop CPU is aging so too many apps using CPU cycles while playing audio seem to cause the dropouts..

 

[webworkings]

If that is the case, then you may have to much connected via the Bluetooth at a time, on top of what is running on the device itself. Most devices are not meant to have multiple Bluetooth connections at a time.

 

[kol12]

That's a good point. It crossed my mind and I thought if anything that multiple Bluetooth connections would cause some type of confusion but not a deterioration of the connection. I suppose it kind of makes sense though. It's possible Bluetooth was enabled on multiple devices so will have to make sure that it is just one device at a time.

 

[parkhenilesh]

I have found on my i7 Macbook Pro (running Windows 10 on Bootcamp) that certain applications which raise the cpu utilisation by few points causes my bluetooth audio to stutter. ex. Docker, Background node processes.

Although average overall CPU utilisation might increase only from 3/4% to 10-12%, bluetooth audio quality decreases severely, with a jarring discontinuity occurring almost every 2 seconds.

I have spent countless hours with Microsoft and Netgear Tech support to solve it. But to no avail.

BT runs properly only after I disable wifi, but that simply does not help with my work. When Wifi is working but the aforementioned apps are shut down, the bluetooth quality improves significantly, with very less stuttering.

Unfortunately, in my case, I believe faulty drivers are the root cause of this behaviour. Broadcom's BT drivers used by Apple are not updated since 2015 and Intel has not rectified its Hyper-V issues and other niggles with Display and Wifi drivers since a long long time.