Loss of Ethernet and Bluetooth on home built MSI motherboard computer

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Although it has extremely fast wireless, there is suddenly no ethernet or Bluetooth on my home built (or should I say “custom”) with the fastest Intel chip and all SSD storage and built for Adobe Photoshop editing.  It may/or not have happened after my efforts to clean it up and upgrade to Win 11.

With trepidation and caution, I flashed the BIOS to the latest, but there’s no Bluetooth shown in Device manager and attempts to connect my new Jabra ear buds were unsuccessful.  The keyboard and mouse are Bluetooth but using the Logitech dongle.  The windows troubleshooters seem, as they often do, not to help.  I’ve seen similar situations on the MSI forums but they seem to be older posts.

I don’t know where to start.  If this is a motherboard failure, I have a spare to use if it needs to go back to the mothership for repairs.  Any suggestions?

I’ve managed to block my path to a Win 11 upgrade by following advice from naysayers about upgrading, but I can’t  find where I got the procedures I followed to change the policy to indefinitely defer any upgrades.  However, that question should probably be on another forum.

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A failed network card should still show up in Device Manager.

You need to go into the BIOS and check that the network / Bluetooth devices are enabled.
If so, boot Windows and check Device Manager again.

cheers, Paul

p.s. open a new thread for the W11 question.

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Using tools I found in an older Microsoft manual, it appears that the mother board has a functioning ethernet and bluetooh card (or a built in circuitry). Are you sure that device manager would show a failed card? I suspect that Windows 10 may not be able to show things that are purely hardware problems. But one of the listed bluetooth programs that won’t load has a message attached that says “bluetooth is turned off” But nowhere in Windows can I find how to turn bluetooth on.

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I would just open both, ethernet and Bluetooth, but the updated BIOS for my MSI motherboard doesn’t seem to offer that.  Perhaps I just can’t find it, so where would it be?

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The exact location in the BIOS for those settings will depend on which MSI motherboard you have; the manual that came with your motherboard “should” include a BIOS settings section that shows where they are so you can ensure they’re both enabled.

BTW, if they are enabled, a quick google search found a “bunch” of MSI users who’ve experienced the same symptom as you (i.e. Bluetooth/Ethernet stopped working after upgrading to Win11) and the fix that seems to always work to restore things is:

1- Shutdown Windows

2- Completely remove power from the PC (i.e. turn the PSU OFF or unplug the power cord)

3- Wait at least 10 minutes

4- Restore power to the PC (i.e. turn the PSU ON or plug in the power cord)

5- Power it up and start Windows.

The problem seems be the Win11 upgrade changes something that “confuses” the Ethernet/Bluetooth controllers on MSI motherboards so they stop working. Removing the power resets whatever it is and they start working again.

joltar wrote:

I’ve seen similar situations on the MSI forums but they seem to be older posts.

Just because a possible fix was found in an older post doesn’t mean it might not still be effective in fixing a current situation; especially if it was for the same/similar problem. The above “remove all the power, wait a bit, then restore it” has to be one of the oldest fixes in the world of PC problems but a lot of times, when all else fails, it still works!

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Thank to all for their suggestions.  One thing that troubled me was that there was no indication in the device manager that I even had functioning Bluetooth.  Using an old Microsoft book, I looked at how to discover if I had one on the  motherboard.  There is no way to turn on or off these functions on the motherboard but thankfully I use a  freeware registry backup from Tweaking.com and I backed up my registry.

This company also offers a repair utility, so I decided to try that.  The instructions suggest you UNPLUG THE POWER SUPPLY AND PUSH THE COMPUTER START BUTTON to drain whatever electrons (or gremlins) that might remain in the motherboard.  Then they have a program that uses the various Microsoft programs (like DISM, I think) to fix your software, etc. in safe mode.  I did as suggested and went to bed.

When I went to AskWoody this morning on my laptop, I reread the unplugging suggestion again.  On going to my desktop, I saw that device manager NOW showed Bluetooth.  I ran the fix to reload the drivers and was able to plug in my new earbuds.  The ethernet is also there and I feel such relief not having to buy more cards, etc.

Thanks again.

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