voodoo6

Q: Jerky/stuttering magic mouse with closed MacBook Pro and 27" Cinema Display

When I use a magic mouse with a closed MacBook Pro (15" i7) connected to a 27" cinema display, the cursor intermittently stutters and jerks around the screen becoming essentially unusable. Suddenly, the cursor/mouse will work fine for a time then back to stuttering.

There is another thread on this here:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=12188354

I also have a wacom intuos 4 - when the mouse stuttering starts I can pick up the pen and it works fine - so the issue *does not* affect the wacom tablet.

Is this a bluetooth issue? A poster in the thread above says it happens with a corded mouse too? Also it seems to be fine when the MBP lid is open..

This is incredibly annoying! Anybody got any ideas for a fix?

MacBook Pro 15" i7, Mac OS X (10.6.4), with 27" ACD

Posted on Oct 29, 2010 4:57 AM

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Q: Jerky/stuttering magic mouse with closed MacBook Pro and 27" Cinema Display

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  • by Xavier Destombes,

    Xavier Destombes Xavier Destombes Nov 19, 2010 6:40 AM in response to voodoo6
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Nov 19, 2010 6:40 AM in response to voodoo6
    Check if Time Machine is not running while it behaves strangely.
    Personally I have a wireless Time Machine setup and when I was using the 2.4GHz band for the network I would sometimes even loose entirely the Magic Mouse.
    It's clearly a bug in OS X / Bluetooth that doesn't ensure enough reliability on the Bluetooth communication while there is wireless traffic.

    The definitive fix has been to create a dedicated 5GHz wireless network which doesn't harm the 2.4GHz of the Bluetooth.
  • by voodoo6,

    voodoo6 voodoo6 Dec 7, 2010 2:11 AM in response to Xavier Destombes
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Dec 7, 2010 2:11 AM in response to Xavier Destombes
    Thanks Xavier, I'm not using time machine on the setup I have problems with, though there is plenty of other wireless network traffic which I need to use almost constantly.

    It seems like we'll just have to wait a for a fix for this one..
  • by voodoowoman74,

    voodoowoman74 voodoowoman74 Dec 7, 2010 1:13 PM in response to voodoo6
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 7, 2010 1:13 PM in response to voodoo6
    Same issue - here, mac pro 2.66 Quad Core, 6 gigs of ram, Apple 10.6.5.

    Happens on 6 monitors currently deployed in my environment.
  • by magnum6,

    magnum6 magnum6 Dec 19, 2010 5:32 AM in response to voodoo6
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 19, 2010 5:32 AM in response to voodoo6
    I have the same problem - definitely network related. The stuttering magic mouse is intermittent. After reading this, I checked my Time Machine system preference when the mouse started jerking. TM had just started writing the latest backup. I turned off Time Machine and the mouse problem immediately went away.

    I'm using 802.11g because of older devices (iPhone!). I've got an extra Airport Extreme that I'm going to setup as a dedicated 802.11n 5GHz network to see if this eliminates the problem.
  • by magnum6,

    magnum6 magnum6 Dec 31, 2010 11:39 AM in response to magnum6
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 31, 2010 11:39 AM in response to magnum6
    Switching to a 5GHz network concretely fixed my problem. I tested multiple times on both a 2.4GHz network and 5GHz network transferring a large movie file over my Airport network. On the 2.4GHz network, the magic pad would jerk, lockup, etc. On 5GHz moving the same file - absolutely no issues.
  • by jensmyhrenthomsen,

    jensmyhrenthomsen jensmyhrenthomsen Jan 12, 2011 8:32 AM in response to magnum6
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 12, 2011 8:32 AM in response to magnum6
    I have been in touch with Apple support many times about this problem, and they could not find any solution other than re-installing everything from scratch - which made no difference.

    The problem is clearly network related - when I changed to a 5GHz network everything remained perfect.
  • by Furi0us.Bee,

    Furi0us.Bee Furi0us.Bee Feb 23, 2011 7:05 PM in response to jensmyhrenthomsen
    Level 2 (403 points)
    Feb 23, 2011 7:05 PM in response to jensmyhrenthomsen
    LOL I just got finished putting my 24" Cinema up for sale on a certain website, just for this issue. I guess I'll try updating my wireless settings and see how that works. I really want to keep it, but so far it's been hard using any mouse or trackpad. When files are downloading, the mouse stutters and jerks really badly. Strange that it doesn't happen to the internal display, just the external...

    Bryan
  • by Chris Sinclair,

    Chris Sinclair Chris Sinclair Apr 19, 2011 5:04 AM in response to Furi0us.Bee
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apr 19, 2011 5:04 AM in response to Furi0us.Bee

    I thought Bluetooth communicated separately from my Airport. How do I create a 5 GHz network and connect my mouse to it, using a Mac Pro (with no airport card) running 10.6.7 ?

    Thanks,

    Chris.

  • by Caltain,

    Caltain Caltain May 15, 2011 8:52 PM in response to voodoo6
    Level 1 (30 points)
    May 15, 2011 8:52 PM in response to voodoo6

    I have all of the hardware that should cause this problem, but I'm not having any issues like those described.  I was just browsing through the support issues and thought I might be able to offer some info or assistance.

     

    There are any number of reasons that connecting the Cinema Display (I use a 27") to a MacBook could cause issues of this sort.  Let me just run through the ones that I can think of off the top of my head… No particular order.

     

    1. Bluetooth and WiFi g/b share the 2.4 gigahertz frequency.  They also share this frequency with a large number of wireless devices around the home, such as baby monitors, cordless phones, wireless cameras, and the like.
    2. Interference from microwave ovens.
    3. Signal strength can be attenuated by grounded metal objects in the path of the signal, such as with the closed lid of a unibody MacBook or the back of the Cinema Display.
    4. The Cinema Display uses USB for sound and as a USB hub.  This may be causing latency problems if the network hardware or the bluetooth hardware in the MacBook are internally connected to the same USB bus as the monitor.  I do not know this to be the case in MacBooks, but I have seen this implementation in other desktops and laptops.
    5. Software issues and network connectivity problems can both cause mouse latency.  What happens is that a service crashes and while launchd is busy re-launching the service, other services can stack up communication buffers.  The network issue is similar, but tends to have longer periods, like .5, 1, and 2 minutes.  The problem is that a foreground app is waiting in vain for some data via the network interface and the network interface is busy doing nothing while a connection times out.  More often this is a problem with PC's than Macs, but it happens.

     

    There are many more issues that could cause these symptoms.  Basically, when wireless-anything is involved, you have to get back to the basics for radio transmission.  First, establish line-of-sight between the two devices, then check for signal strength and interference problems by moving the devices as close together as possible.  Second, eliminate interference by unplugging any other cordless devices in the home or office.  If those actions do not solve the problem, then the issue may be caused by other activities being performed by the device at either end of the wireless connection.  Check for errors on the System Console. 

     

    In this case, the problem seems to be interference between the WiFi and Bluetooth radios.  If you do not have the option of moving to a 5ghz-only WiFi network, or if you feel that the throughput of dual-channel WiFi is worth some work, then try reducing the power of the WiFi radios, first in the MacBook, then in the WiFi router.  It is possible that the Bluetooth signal is just getting drowned out by the more powerful WiFi signal.  You would be amazed how many people run their Wifi radios at maximum power when the router is across the room or in the next room.  Not only is this not necessary, it causes interference issues and presents a security issue.  After all, to hack your home network, one must first be able to connect to it.  You don't really need to surf from your neighbors back yard…;-)