Bluetooth headset sound "lag"

I have Sony's DR-BT50 Bluetooth headset and I tried to connect it to my HP Pavilion zv 6253EA laptop. Connecting them goes well, but when I try to listen to anything from them through the laptop, the sound goes on for about half a second, then goes off for half a second and then back on. This just keeps on going and doesn't stop, naturally making them unusable.

The problem shouldn't be in the headphones as they work fine thru an audio-in/bluetooth adapter and also through my desktop's usb/bluetooth adapter. The laptop's bluetooth is built-in.

I looked for answers from the headset's manual and it suggested lowering the bitrate or so. I did this but it didn't change anything. I've also tried unpairing and them pairing the headphones with the laptop numerous times. All drivers on the laptop are just a few days old and from the manufacturer's website, so they shouldn't be the problem. The sound problems also aren't program-specific.

Any ideas? :confused

 

could the inbuilt bluetooth adaptor on the laptop be old bluetooth 1.1 rather than 2.0?
try installing everest and reporting back what that has to say about your bluetooth hardware.
http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

the other thing to look at would be to disable your current bluetooth device on the laptop using device manager, then plugging your usb adapter from the desktop into the lappie and trying it all out again.

at least then we know if its the adapter, installed bluetooth stack or the laptop itself

 

This laptop is so old that it is indeed possible the Bluetooth isn't 2.0 in the built-in adapter. I'm on vacation so I can't get the USB adapter from my desktop, but EVEREST doesn't give any information at all on the Bluetooth device's version. HQ Bluetooth audio seems to be available, however. Dunno if that was supported before 2.0.

If the built-in adapter has 1.2 or something, is it possible to use the headset with this computer at all? :/

 

Bluetooth 2.0 I believe to be backwards compatible, but a lot can depend on the services available at the other end.
I couldn't find any information about the adapter in your laptop, but, going by your age description it may well be one of the earlier standards. Possibly, available bandwidth could be an issue here?

Some other things to look at:
Is the Bluetooth 'stack' (software/drivers) on the laptop up to date?
Are you running the generic windows Bluetooth drivers, otherwise they could be by Toshiba (unlikely being an HP), Broadcom / Widcom (quite possible) or IVT?
This depends on the hardware you've got, as there may be a better Bluetooth 'stack' you could try if you can let us know?

One other random idea, not sure if it will be relevant, but... do you have another bluetooth device you could transfer some files to from the laptop? cell phone, PDA or the like?
You could transfer say a 5Mb file and report how long it takes, it might give us an idea on how fast the adapter can actually pipe data...

 

I dunno about testing the speed with cellphone, but if it was the issue, what could I do? I also noticed a new thing today when I was trying to fix this problem: my laptop only recognizes the "stereo headphones" service from the headset, even thou it also has a microphone.

Drivers shouldn't be a problem, I downloaded them from HP's product site a week ago, and I think they aren't just some generic Windows ones.

 

It was mainly intended as an idea to test the bandwidth you've got available...

Do you have any other devices using bluetooth on the laptop?
A2DP stereo protocol can be up to 768kbits/s of bandwidth, whereas older bluetooth hardware only has a total available bandwidth of 1Mbit/s.
A small chunk of this is always reserved for the voice layer, around 192kbit/s (3 x 64bit/s channels as I understand) for mono mobile headsets and the like, so any other devices taking up bandwidth can cause cut outs & interruptions in your stereo audio stream

Sources:
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Feature/57229,bluetooth-%E2%80%93-a2dp-explained.aspx
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2008/09/15/44505/bluetooth-gets-audio-quality-overhaul.htm

 

You could look at getting a different Bluetooth adapter to the 2.0 standard which has 3Mbit/s available, the module in your laptop is pretty easy to remove and HP may have a spare part off a later gen laptop that will slot right in.

Otherwise, try with the adapter off your desktop as I suggested above.
I have seen a large number of USB adapters which only protrude a few mm from the USB port... such as this on ebay
Probably a whole lot cheaper the a genuine part from HP too.

 

Okay.. Well, no other devices are connected and I'm on vacation right now so I can't test out the desktop's adapter. I guess I'll wait until I get home. Thanks for all your help!

 

No probs, let me know how things work out when you get back