Prime Z790-A WIFI. Do I need external Bluetooth USB or other adapter, to connect Bluetooth devices?

[Panagiotis_Mela]

Good day to the community

I am using Asus Prime Z790-A WIFI Motherboard on a PC, built in May this year, with an Intel i9-13900KF CPU and Windows 11 Pro OS. I have noticed in the BIOS setup manual (page 70) the following:

Connectivity Mode (Wi-Fi & Bluetooth)

Allows you to enable or disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity module

Configuration options: [Disabled] [Enabled]

From above I understand that a separate Bluetooth module must be connected somewhere on the motherboard. I wonder if this is a special separately purchased device or just a simple USB Bluetooth adapter.

Your help will be appreciated.

[JohnAb · Accepted solution]

The WiFi and Bluetooth modules are both normally on the same chip (probably an AX210 in your case, although I'm not certain). Anyway, I'm confident that WiFi and Bluetooth will both be present. The WIFi antenna will also act as the Bluetooth antenna as well. You will need to install separate drivers for WiFi and Bluetooth though...

[Panagiotis_Mela]

Thanks a lot for your advice, mate!

Now, I will certainly search my PC to see if there are drivers for Bluetooth. The Wi-Fi drivers are already installed.

Again, thank you very much

[JohnAb]

You're welcome. MoKiChU on this thread provides all of the latest drivers: https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/hardware-build-advice/index-all-my-drivers-firmware-software-threads/m... 

and specifically, you can get the Bluetooth drivers for Intel 790 here: https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/downloads-for-motherboards/drivers-intel-ethernet-wifi-bluetooth/td-p/...

You will need to find out which WiFi chipset your board has to select the right version. I'm guessing it's an AX210, but please check. Otherwise, your motherboard support page will have everything you need, it's just that MoKiChU's drivers will be the latest versions, usually much more recent than the support pages.  

If using the support pages, be sure to expand each section to 'see all downloads' otherwise some drivers will be hidden out of site. 

[Panagiotis_Mela]

I have to thank you once more for your advice.

I feel safe downloading the latest Bluetooth driver from Asus support, but it is really challenging to get the most recent driver from MoKiChU thread. However, I am also not sure which chipset my Z790-A is using. I guess that there should be a source giving this information (perhaps somewhere in this forum), but I don't know where to look. Unless, this can be found by looking on the motherboard itself, but again, I need to know where to look at. Or - maybe - to ask Asus directly,

Your suggestion?

[JohnAb]

I can't find it on Google, so I think the best plan will be to install the support page Wi-Fi drivers first. Once that's done, you'll be able to look in Device Manager and see what the chip is. 

As you can see, mine is the AX210 for both WiFi and Bluetooth, so in this example you would use MoKiChU's "Drivers - AXxx0 : 23.0.0.10 WHQL [04/09/2023]" which is the current version for Bluetooth. Select the latest WiFi drivers in the same way - in that case you would select the AXxxx drivers (or whatever driver matches your WiFi chip type). Hopefully you can see that AXxx0 and AXxxx both match AX210 where the small x's are wildcards.  

Of course, there is no rush to install any of MoKiChu's drivers, you can always do it later if you want. I have them all installed as I like to be fully up to date. Many of his drivers will need to be updated through Device Manager rather than using an installer, so it might be easier to use the support pages for now, at least to get everything working properly. 

I'm a bit strange, but I enjoy making sure that all drivers are bang up to date. I love it when a driver gets updated by MoKiChU 😂😅 I even keep a spreadsheet of all installed versions for reference. 

Finally, if you develop a healthy interest in drivers (not likely of course), you can download a program called 'Driver Store Explorer' (free) which will detail every driver being used by your system. It's a nerd's dream, lol.