One of the most common problems encountered when connecting Bluetooth headphones to a laptop or PC is when the headphones are connected but do not play sound. That is, the sound from the laptop (in games, in the browser, in the player) does not go to the wireless headphones, but is reproduced from the laptop's speakers or connected speakers. At the same time, very often the Bluetooth headphones themselves are not displayed in playback devices in Windows 10, 8, 7. There is no way to select the headphone as a device for sound output from the computer.
We will consider solutions related specifically to the lack of sound from the headphones, and not to the connection. Your earphone must be connected to your computer. If you can't connect, here's a guide: how to connect Bluetooth headphones to a computer or laptop. Another popular problem is when the laptop does not see Bluetooth headphones at all. Answering questions on this topic in the comments to other articles, I noticed that most of the problems are related precisely to the incompatibility of the headphones and the system / driver of the Bluetooth adapter. Even if Windows finds and connects headphones (or a Bluetooth speaker, it doesn't matter), very often the system simply does not understand how to work with this device. Since the device is new and the driver / system is outdated. And for this very reason, very often you have to look for and apply different solutions, which I will discuss in this article. This happens especially often when connecting new devices to Windows 7, since the system is already old, and usually it is installed on laptops and PCs with outdated hardware.
Checking Bluetooth headphones in Windows playback devices
So you connected the headphones to the computer, they connected, but there is no sound. First of all, you need to open the sound control panel, see if there are headphones there, and if they are used as the default audio output device.
In Windows 10, go to Settings, to the "System" section, the "Sound" tab and select "Sound Control Panel" on the right. Or just right-click on the sound icon in the tray and select "Open Sound Options", where go to "Sound Control Panel". In the "Sound" window, on the "Playback" tab, there should be Bluetooth headphones. You need to right-click on them and select "Use as default".
An icon (a check mark in a green circle) and the status "Default device" will appear near the headphones. After that, the sound should be played through the earphone.
It's pretty much the same in Windows 7. You need to open "Playback Devices" and make the Bluetooth Headset the default device.
If after these actions there is silence from the headphones, there is no sound (and it should be: music is on, the video is open on the computer, there is sound through the speakers), then check the volume settings on the computer and on the headphones (there may be separate buttons for this). Connect the earphone to another device (phone, for example) for testing. It also happens that there is sound, but it is bad. I wrote about this in a separate article: poor sound in Bluetooth headphones on a computer or laptop.
If in the sound settings in Windows there are no Bluetooth headphones at all, then there are most often two reasons:
- The headphones are still not connected to the laptop / PC. I wrote about this at the beginning of the article and gave a link to the instructions. To check if connected or not, go to the Bluetooth settings on your computer and check. In Windows 10, you need to go to "Settings", to the "Devices" section to the "Bluetooth" tab. There, the headphone should be in the status "Connected voice, music", or "Connected music". In the "Sound" section. There should be a headphone icon next to them.
In Windows 7, you need to open the "Control Panel" and go to "Hardware and Sound" - "Devices and Printers" - "Bluetooth Devices".
There should be headphones in there. But no mistake. Without the yellow exclamation mark, like I have in the screenshot near the AirPods. By the way, I wrote about the problems with connecting AirPods in Windows 7 in the article How to connect AirPods to a computer and laptop on Windows. But such a problem in the seven happens not only with AirPods, but also with many other, new headphones. - Headphones are connected, but the driver is not installed, Windows does not recognize them as headphones. It looks like this: in Windows 10, headphones may not be detected correctly. For example, like a phone (phone icon next to the name). Or located in the "Other Devices" section, not "Sound".
Device manager may have uninstalled Bluetooth peripherals.
The situation is similar in Windows 7. Connected headphones are displayed with a yellow exclamation mark. If you right-click on them and run "Troubleshoot", you will most likely see a message that "No driver installed for Bluetooth peripheral."
And the system cannot find and install it. Moreover, there is no way to manually install it either. More on this later in the article.
In Windows 7, you need to open the "Control Panel" and go to "Hardware and Sound" - "Devices and Printers" - "Bluetooth Devices".
There should be headphones in there. But no mistake. Without the yellow exclamation mark, like I have in the screenshot near the AirPods. By the way, I wrote about the problems with connecting AirPods in Windows 7 in the article How to connect AirPods to a computer and laptop on Windows. But such a problem in the seven happens not only with AirPods, but also with many other, new headphones.
Device manager may have uninstalled Bluetooth peripherals.
And the system cannot find and install it. Moreover, there is no way to manually install it either. More on this later in the article.As a result: either the headphones are not connected at all (and you just need to connect them), or they are connected, but the driver is not installed, or a curve driver is installed. And without a driver, Windows does not understand what kind of device it is and how to work with it. Therefore, the laptop does not output sound to the Bluetooth headphone, since the system does not know that these are headphones at all, and that they can be used to reproduce sound.
What's with the driver for bluetooth headphones?
We can't just download and install the driver on a specific headphone. For the reason that there are simply no such drivers. There is no driver for AirPods, for some model of headphones from JBL, Sony, Marshall, Sennheiser, Panasonic, Beats, or some Chinese TWS headphones, etc. There are no separate drivers, you can look at the website of the manufacturer of your headphones.
If I understand correctly, the algorithm for working with headphones is laid down in the driver of the Bluetooth adapter. Therefore, all we can do is update the Bluetooth adapter driver. Well, a few more tips:
- Remove the headphones from the list of connected devices in Windows, remove them in Device Manager, and then reconnect.
- Update (reinstall) the Bluetooth adapter driver. It can be downloaded from the laptop manufacturer's website (for your model), or from the adapter manufacturer's website (if you have a USB or PCI adapter). Download the driver and start installing it.
There is also such a moment that the newest driver, as a rule, can be found on the website of the manufacturer of the wireless module (Wi-Fi / Bluetooth usually works through one module, especially in laptops). If, for example, you have a Wi-Fi / Bluetooth module from Intel (as in my case), then download the Wireless Bluetooth driver for Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7 from the Intel website. - Install any updates to the Windows operating system. Very often, along with system updates, driver updates are installed, among which there may be a driver for Bluetooth.
After updating, try reconnecting your headphones. Perhaps after that Windows will detect them, and they appear in the list of devices for playing sound in Windows settings.
