MiSTer FPGA Forum

I can't get my 8bitdo bluetooth dongle to work with the 2.1 hub. I tried all the ports but I do not get the green indicator light. The 2.4ghz dongle works fine for the M30 in any port. If I use the same bluetooth dongle with my OTG hub, it works fine.

If I were to plug in only an 8bitdo bluetooth dongle, the green indicator light on the hub would not come on yet the red light on the adapter would be solid. It should be blinking to allow me to pair. Pressing the pairing button on the dongle itself does not make it blink either.

If I plugged in only my Logitech dongle for my keyboard, it works fine and the green indicator light stays solid on the hub. I can also plug in a wired usb controller and that works fine too.

If I plug in both the 2.4ghz dongle for the M30 as well as the Logitech dongle, this works fine.

If I plug in the 2.4ghz dongle, the Logitech dongle, plus the 8bitdo bluetooth dongle, the green indicator light for the Logitech dongle starts to blink and the keyboard no longer works. The M30 controller does not work either. If I plug in a wired controller, that does not work either and the green indicator light flashes. The 8bitdo bluetooth dongle's pairing light starts to flash but it does not allow me to pair.

If I plug in the 8bitdo dongle plus the logitech dongle, the keyboard works, green indicator light is on but the 8bitdo dongle green indicator light is still off and it does not work.

I just want my 8bitdo bluetooth dongle to work

it seems there is a problem with power for USB hub. Make sure it gets separate power. Power from microUSB connector is not enough.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the hub is getting separate power.

Something new to add: I updated the firmware on both the controller and the adapter. Now when I plug in the bluetooth adapter, the green indicator light comes on. For the first 10 seconds or so after inserting the adapter, the pairing light blinks. If I press the pairing button, it blinks rapidly as expected but it will not pair with the controller. I just tried the pairing process on my PC and it works fine. This is so strange.

It still looks like power problem. Either power supply isn't good or something wrong with USB hub. I have 8bitdo receivers (both brown and grey) - they all work fine with USB hub v2.1.

I had a similar problem.

What happened was that I was using a power switch between the power supply and the Y cable that splits between the main board and the USB hub 2.1. The switch was heating up so the device wasn't getting the correct voltage.

When I removed the switch and connected the power supply directly to the Y cable Barrel Plug Splitter everything worked fine.

Ryuoken wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:51 pm I had a similar problem.

What happened was that I was using a power switch between the power supply and the Y cable that splits between the main board and the USB hub 2.1. The switch was heating up so the device wasn't getting the correct voltage.

When I removed the switch and connected the power supply directly to the Y cable Barrel Plug Splitter everything worked fine.

Like Sorgelig said, it seems to be a power issue. Very odd that it is only affecting the pairing ability though. Odd too that I can plug in several other things at one time and that works with no power issue.

I do not have a switch in between the power supply though. I suppose my next step is to measure what is coming out of both of those barrel connectors. I suppose I can do that with a multimeter?

Edit: my PSU is 5 volts 2 amps 10 watts.

geiger9 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 6:26 pm

Ryuoken wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:51 pm I had a similar problem.

What happened was that I was using a power switch between the power supply and the Y cable that splits between the main board and the USB hub 2.1. The switch was heating up so the device wasn't getting the correct voltage.

When I removed the switch and connected the power supply directly to the Y cable Barrel Plug Splitter everything worked fine.

Like Sorgelig said, it seems to be a power issue. Very odd that it is only affecting the pairing ability though. Odd too that I can plug in several other things at one time and that works with no power issue.

I do not have a switch in between the power supply though. I suppose my next step is to measure what is coming out of both of those barrel connectors. I suppose I can do that with a multimeter?

Edit: my PSU is 5 volts 2 amps 10 watts.

Okey then.

Just added my information in case it might be usefull.

I use a 5 Volt 4 Amps power supply.

Good luck!

Sorg and Ryuoken, I have discovered something interesting but I'm not sure if this will change your answer that this is a power supply issue.

I used lsusb in the Linux terminal to see what it detects when I plug in the 8bitdo bluetooth adapter. It shows up as 045e:028e which is an Xbox 360 Controller. If you guys ran lsusb, what does yours say for the 8bitdo bluetooth adapter? Interesting note, when I use the unpowered OTG hub and then connect the 8bd bluetooth adapter, it still registers as an xbox360 controller but yet it works fine with the unpowered OTG hub.

I also did this test: I plugged in the following USB devices to the 2.1 MiSTer hub: a keyboard, an SN30, an N30, and an M30 2.4ghz dongle. Everything works like this. When I plug in the 8BD bluetooth adapter, some lights go out or blink. Now THIS I can understand being a power supply issue. If I just plug in the 8BD bluetooth adapter by itself, the green indicator light is solid.

I'm hesitant to buy a larger $40-50 CAD power supply for my MiSTER because someone said it did not help them with the problem and they ended up just replacing the 8BD bluetooth dongle with a generic bluetooth dongle.

Update 1: I just tried connecting all these things once more and now the indicator light on the 8BD bluetooth dongle port stays green along with everything else. Weird.

Update 2: with everything plugged in a second time and all lights green, I ran lsusb once more. Now my 8BD bluetooth adapter shows up with ID 0483:5760 which is a company called STMicroelectronics. A google search of Linux 0483:5760 shows that people have had this problem in Linux distros.

Update 3: I tried downgrading the firmware on the 8BD bluetooth adapter to 1.22 but the same ID issue happens.

Update 4: For whatever reason, the second time I inserted the adapter with original firmware 1.22, the pairing button now works but it won't pair to the controller. Also I looked into the MiSTer log and found this:

Feb 9 18:17:48 MiSTer user.info kernel: [18163.298457] usb 1-1.1: new full-speed USB device number 20 using dwc2
Feb 9 18:17:48 MiSTer user.info kernel: [18163.388248] usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=045e, idProduct=028e, bcdDevice= 1.20
Feb 9 18:17:48 MiSTer user.info kernel: [18163.388261] usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Feb 9 18:17:48 MiSTer user.info kernel: [18163.388268] usb 1-1.1: Product: 8Bitdo Receiver
Feb 9 18:17:48 MiSTer user.info kernel: [18163.388275] usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: 8Bitdo Receiver
Feb 9 18:17:48 MiSTer user.info kernel: [18163.388282] usb 1-1.1: SerialNumber: Receiver
Feb 9 18:17:48 MiSTer user.info kernel: [18163.390549] XPAD: original out.bInterval=8 -> new interval=8
Feb 9 18:17:48 MiSTer user.info kernel: [18163.390558] XPAD: original in.bInterval=4 -> new interval=4
Feb 9 18:17:48 MiSTer user.info kernel: [18163.390890] input: Microsoft X-Box 360 pad as /devices/platform/soc/ffb40000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:1.0/input/input35

I'm not sure how to interpret this log. I'm confused.

Update 5: I tried reverting back to two earlier firmware versions of MiSTer to see if the problem still existed. The first one I tried was the earliest combo of files from the repo. At this point the 8bitdo bluetooth dongle firmware was back to it's most current. The pairing button stayed solid on this earliest version of MiSTer and it would not enter pairing mode. I then tried the first version from 2019 and it still had the same problem.

I give up. I really do thank the people that I have bothered on this forum, the subreddit, and the Discord. Thank you for taking the time to try and help me. I know that PSU was an issue some people brought up but I really don't want to risk spending $40 ish Canadian dollars on something that might not work. Other people I've spoken to have said that buying a beefier PSU did not solve this issue. All the stuff I tried and seen above makes me believe this is not a power issue. The general mood from all the people is "stop your futile fight and just buy the generic bluetooth adapter. Forget 8bitdo's bluetooth adapter." I just don't have the time to continue trying to solve this problem. Hopefully someone can pick up the torch and get this figured out because it really sucks that I wasted money on that adapter.

I think the problem is the voltage on the hub board ，when I test it ，it is below 5v ，maybe the 8bitdo bluetooth dongle needs higher voltage to work