Bluetooth issues on Early 2013 MacBook Pro 15 inch

Hi,

I upgraded the airport card to a 802.11ac on my Early 2013 MacBook Pro 15 inch. After the install wifi works fine but, bluetooth is not working properly. I try to connecting the magic keyboard 2, magic 2 mouse and BT headphones. Can someone help me with this?

Airport Card: Broadcom AirPort Card BCM94360CS

Mac OS Sierra

Remedies tried:

1) Check system report: bluetooth is connected

2) Reset the PRAM and SMC

3) Reset the bluetooth module

4) deleted com.apple.blutooth.plist and restarted

5) Turned bluetooth off and back on after restart

6) Reset devices to factory default

A little late here... Ironically, I probably had my upgrade card at the time of your post, but my lazy #$$ just installed it tonight.

Anyways, after I installed the new card, I was having issues with Bluetooth, but my test device was a Bose BT speaker. The audio was super choppy and would be interrupted by volume adjustments performed on the Mac. Reorienting the lid or the machine itself also interrupted the signal. Wifi seemed ok, but I didn't do much testing as the BT problem was obvious.

Going back to the install, I did have trouble getting the center antenna cable to connect (pretty sure those three little guys are mini coax cables). I never got that middle connector to give me that mild "snap" the outer two gave me. It also looked slightly crooked, but was holding, oddly. I gave up after messing with it for a few min. I flipped the machine back over to turn it on and realized I had HOT SWAPPED my forking radio card! Could this be the issue?!

I work with wireless audio on a daily basis, and since the problem seemed to be worsened by changing the orientation of the MacBook, I figured it was antenna related.

Here's what I did to fix the issue:

I reseated that middle antenna cable and I think the connection looks better than it did. I also, for good measure, tried to push the entire card further into its port, as I heard BT talks over USB, which I guess is embedded in said port. I also opt+shift clicked BT > Debug > Remove all devices + Reset the Bluetooth module in the OS menu bar.

After the fix, I walked around with my laptop streaming audio and had zero interruptions. Volume control from the Mac no longer causes interruptions. Everything sounds great. Wifi tests are blazing (I didn't realize my wireless N card would limit a "150mbps" internet connection! Was getting 160 max, and I just peaked at 250 each test, and rode out the rest at around 200. Granted, this is a few tests at one time on one day...)

Now that I've way overthought this response... I'm sure you've moved on by now, but I'm curious if your BT problems were intermittent. As in, could you only get a few keystrokes in here and there, or a few mouse moves, but it would interrupt or even disconnect randomly? If so, maybe it was an antenna issue!

And now we should be able to upgrade to Big Sur, no?!