Fix: Xbox One Wireless Adapter not Working

Xbox wireless adapter has been on the market for a while with a lot of potential for people who use PCs. It allows you to connect your Xbox wireless controllers on Windows PC’s, tablets, and laptops. It has the capacity to handle up to eight controllers, two stereo headsets, and four chat headsets. You can use this device with PC games or Xbox One games which are streamed to Windows 10.

Despite it being a Microsoft product, Xbox One wireless adapter is known to cause connectivity issues with almost all versions of Windows. There are numerous times where the adapters fail to connect properly or fails to synchronize. The core reason why this happens is that there are outdated drivers installed on your computer.

Solution: Installing Latest Drivers

Drivers are the main working force behind any hardware. If the driver involved is outdated or is corrupt, you will not be able to connect with the wireless adapter under any circumstance. Windows might also give you code 10 which means that the correct drivers are not installed on your computer. We will navigate to the device manager and update the drivers after downloading them accordingly.

1. Navigate to Microsoft’s catalog website and search for “Xbox wireless” in the search box. A list of different drivers will be presented in front of you. Download the correct one after looking up your operating system from the list of specifications.
2. After downloading the driver to an accessible location, press Windows + R, type “devmgmt.msc” in the dialogue box and press Enter.
3. The receiver should be showing up as an unknown device named “XBOX ACC”. Right-click on the device and select “Update Driver”.

4. Select the second option which says “Browse my computer for driver software”.

5. Click on the “Browse” button and navigate to the location where you downloaded the driver. Do note that you might have to unzip the driver before you are able to select it.

6. Now let the driver install. The controllers and your wireless receiver should work as expected without any problems.

Tip: If the drivers are failing to install despite doing everything, you can uninstall the currently installed driver and install the latest one. Right-click on the device and select “Uninstall driver”. Now follow the instructions before.

How to Sync my Controller with Adapter?

If your adapter is now properly connected and its drivers are installed on your computer, you can now sync your controllers with the adapter. Here are a few tips on getting you started right away:

• Press and hold the Sync button on your receiver until it starts flashing.
• Once the adapter has started flashing, press and hold the Xbox bind controller button on the front of the controller until Xbox Home light flashes rapidly.
• After a moment, lights on both, the controller and adapter should stop blinking and light solid. This means that you are connected perfectly and ready to go.

Tip: There were few reports of where people experienced problems when connecting the adapter to windows 3.0 ports. In that case, you can try plugging it into normal 2.0 ports mostly found at the back of your PC.

Fix: Controller not Syncing after restarts

There is a common behavior observed where the controller fails to sync after a restart is done. If your adapter works perfectly but after a while, the controllers fail to bind, it probably means that there is a problem with your power management settings. Windows automatically shut down all idle hardware connected to your computer after a specific time period. We can change this setting and see how things go.

1. Press Windows + R, type “devmgmt.msc” in the dialogue box and press Enter. Now navigate to the controller installed, right-click it and select “Properties”.
2. Navigate to the “Power Management” tab and uncheck ‘Allow the computer to turn this device to save power’. Press OK to save changes and exit.

3. Now the adapter will not disconnect and all of your controllers will stay connected even after any restarts.

Tip: If you are using a PC, you can try plugging the adapter into the USB ports present at the backside of the tower.