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castelletta Author

Level 1

11 points

Poor Bluetooth reception and jerky mouse

I want to share my findings upon the poor reception of the internal Bluetooth module on my 2009 Mac Pro. The mouse in particular seems to suffer the most from the low BT signal.

It has to be said that if you succeed to place your Mac Pro in a particular position you can obtain optimal mouse reception. It seems that the field covered by BT signal is very irregular (due to the aluminum case?) and I think also altered by other metal objects that can exist on your desk (or inside/under you desk and his structure).

This can explain why some users tell of fantastic BT reception with their Mac Pro and others (majority) complain about awful Magic Mouse tracking.

In my situation I've been forced to plug-in a D-LINK DBT-120 dongle. It performs very well and maintain always connection with mouse and keyboard upon restart......unfortunately the same peripherals can't awake my Mac Pro during the sleep mode. A little uncomfortable (because you have to press the power button) and I thing very strange since this dongle is considered the only BT dongle fully supported from Apple.

I tried other dongles but all seem to lose connection. Some after restart, others after sleep mode.

For sure it's a shame that the most powerful and most expensive machine that Apple is selling right now is so badly performing in the BT compartment and it's more unforgivable since Apple seems to push very much their wireless peripherals.

Ok Apple, it's not easy to grant a powerful BT antenna in the metal case of the Mac Pro? Well please provide or support an external module that fully support all Mac OS functions (key selection on startup, wake on sleep ... etc) and consistently. I don't think it's a science fiction task.

I'm waiting your experimentation in placing your Mac Pro differently.

Please share your experiences....thank you

MacPro 2009 - 8 core, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Nov 12, 2009 8:05 AM

357 replies

Aug 13, 2010 12:43 PM in response to castelletta

D'OH!! I've got an external Firewire audio interface sitting on top of my Mac Pro. That's what's causing my problem. When I move the thing off my Mac, my Bluetooth problems clear up. I didn't even think of this until I started reading about the case being the problem, and I thought maybe this external rack-mount device of mine is causing some sort of interference by sitting on the aluminum case. Sure enough, it is.

dgl735

Level 1

8 points

Aug 18, 2010 7:11 AM in response to castelletta

I've had the same lousy bluetooth reception on an august 09 mac pro. I took it to the shop and was told everything was perfect. I asked later at the Apple store about the new case but they don't seem to be aware of it. I just installed the external antenna fix suggested by nobblynoel and it works wonderfully. Whereas before everything was jerky at two feet, now it is smooth and quick at 25 feet. I used a 12 inch cable and it was plenty long enough. Thanks for the easy fix!

Sep 22, 2010 4:28 AM in response to Holger_S

if anything it's worse on the 2010 mp. i just bought 2 and the bt reception is terrible. the only solution is to use an iogear bt dongle connected to the rear usb port (you can't use a powered hub for this) via a usb extender cable up to your desktop.

it's pretty embarrassing that a £4k mac won't work with it's own mighty mouse – especially when the mouse it only 6 feet away.

best wishes
max

MacoMann

Level 1

0 points

Dec 20, 2010 9:42 AM in response to patniemeyer

this was a message by another user but i am facing the same problem and tried my level best to solve it. no success!

"I was having issues with my Magic Mouse, to fix these issues I was advised to delete to files 'AppleBluetoothMultitouch.kext' and 'AppleMultitouchDriver.kext'. Well thankfully after doing this and rebooting my Mac my Magic Mouse was now working*.

Unfortunately in the process it had also lost its Multitouch features, no scrolling, no zooming, nothing. Now i'm no expert but i'm guessing it's due to the lack of the two files I deleted?

What I'm really asking is how would I go about getting these two files back? I understand it's probably against the rules to share with me with the exact files so is there a certain software update that will put these files back in their original places? I have tried updating the Magic Mouse software but it claims I already have it updated.

Any help is greatly appreciated." by Pink

please help! thanks!

JMZ

Level 1

4 points

Dec 21, 2010 3:15 PM in response to castelletta

I have the newest mac pro, and I am having the same problems. The internals are sufficiently different from the prev models that I could not locate the antennae to switch or fiddle with them. Very frustrating, as my mouse is currently ~2 feet from my computer. It seemed to work better when I had the computer on the floor and directly under the mouse, unfortunately, it works out better (with my available space) to have it elevated about 2 feet and over 2 feet. This is very frustrating apple!! please fix.

Jan 3, 2011 7:36 AM in response to paiik

I'm having the same problem, brand new Mac Pro won't work properly with the supplied Magic Mouse unless it's 18" away from the internal aerial. At 2 feet, it stutters and has jerky scrolling (that's where I operate it). At 3 feet away, it's a joke, and at 4 feet, it stops working.
I'm going down the path of extending the aerial outside of the cabinet, but instead of attaching the external aerial on the back, I'm going to fix it under the table (where it can't be seen), via it's magnetic base. Hope this clears up the stuttering.
I must admit, I'm a bit peeved at spending £3.5k on a computer, only to find that the BT is cr4p! I never had any problems with any other computer or laptop, just the Pro.

Bob.

Jan 7, 2011 4:57 AM in response to Robert Farthing

Robert Farthing wrote:
I'm having the same problem, brand new Mac Pro won't work properly with the supplied Magic Mouse unless it's 18" away from the internal aerial. At 2 feet, it stutters and has jerky scrolling (that's where I operate it). At 3 feet away, it's a joke, and at 4 feet, it stops working.
I'm going down the path of extending the aerial outside of the cabinet, but instead of attaching the external aerial on the back, I'm going to fix it under the table (where it can't be seen), via it's magnetic base. Hope this clears up the stuttering.
I must admit, I'm a bit peeved at spending £3.5k on a computer, only to find that the BT is cr4p! I never had any problems with any other computer or laptop, just the Pro.

Bob.

So, I've converted the BT aerial to external, and it's a revelation.
Whereas before, I needed to operate the mouse within 18" of the left sidepanel, I can now scroll smoothly up to 25' (I can't get any further away just now because it's raining, and I'd need to go outside), and it works through 2 brick walls (but not 3).
Very happy with it now. Big thanks to nobblynoel for his blog http://nobblynoel.wordpress.com

Bob

X423424X

Level 6

14,271 points

Jan 7, 2011 10:25 PM in response to Robert Farthing

The nobblynoel stuff appears to be for a 2009 mac pro. But your sig says you have a 2010 mac pro. I thought the BT stuff was supposed to be harder to reach on the 2010's. Or is it? Do those 2009 instructions apply equally to the 2010's?

FWIW I gave up on the internal BT for my mouse (and trackpad) and just us a dongle plugged into the back of my monitor.

Jan 8, 2011 3:36 AM in response to X423424X

X423424X wrote:
The nobblynoel stuff appears to be for a 2009 mac pro. But your sig says you have a 2010 mac pro. I thought the BT stuff was supposed to be harder to reach on the 2010's. Or is it? Do those 2009 instructions apply equally to the 2010's?

FWIW I gave up on the internal BT for my mouse (and trackpad) and just us a dongle plugged into the back of my monitor.

My Pro is a Mid 2010 (latest) model. The bluetooth card is very easy to get to, it's just a bit further towards the back (and you can't get the wires mixed up with the wi-fi connectors). Just slide out the processor tray, and there it is!
I went overboard and purchased a 12" lead, as a 6" would be a bit of a stretch.
I slipped the little clear tube over the old connector to insulate it.
I've used mini U.FL connectors before, but even so, I found it easier to take the BT card out (one screw and a connector) to click the connector on...they're TINY!
I've taken photo's of mine, but not sure if you can post then on this forum, so I've put them here;

http://www.rrsport.co.uk/gallery/index.php?cat=10671

Can someone let me know if they can see them?
Thanks.

Bob.

X423424X

Level 6

14,271 points

Jan 8, 2011 12:04 PM in response to Robert Farthing

I can seem them. Thanks. Here's a case of a picture being worth a 1000 words 🙂 If it isn't too much bother could you add a closeup of the wire connection to the board?

I guess my only concern with this modification is a the sacrifice of a slot port. It would be nice if there was some other way to get the antenna connection out of the box although I guess the one used is the least destructive.

Jan 8, 2011 1:46 PM in response to X423424X

I've added a close-up picture of the BT board and connection.
I bought a blank PCI plate from Maplins for 99p, so I wouldn't need to drill the Apple plate (just in case I needed to take it in for repairs sometime).

Hope this helps.

Bob.

Jan 9, 2011 11:36 AM in response to Robert Farthing

It's very odd, I've just been into the local Apple Store, and tried their MagicMouse/MacPro setup, and it worked no problem up to about 5 feet (that's as far as the security cable would stretch). The Apple guy said he had never heard of any problems with the Pro and BT issues.
Does this mean there are just a batch of a few isolated cases?
Is it a batch of faulty BT antenna (as the BT circuit works fine with another aerial attached)?
If so, why has the fault cropped up so many times over a long time period (years)?
If one Pro works o.k., why don't they all?
I'm very confused.................

Bob.

X423424X

Level 6

14,271 points

Jan 9, 2011 11:24 PM in response to Robert Farthing

I think the mouse reception depends to a large (?) degree on what's physically between the mouse antenna and the mac pro antenna. In my case I have my mac pro on the floor around the front of my (1" thick wooden) desk somewhat hidden by another desk which is at right angles. The signal (such that it is) has a line of sight that goes partially through the mac pro itself and a couple layers of furniture (end of one desk and up through my work desk where the mouse is -- about 5 or 6 feet.

Personally I think it's the antenna in the magic mouse that leaves a lot to be desired ("Magic Mouse-gate" :-)). I base this on the fact that I also have a magic trackpad. It would loose connection sometimes but it didn't behave nearly as bad as the mouse did. In addition, I looked at the signal strengths with the Bluetooth Explorer (included with the XCode developer tools) and the trackpad always had a higher signal than the mouse.

Currently a cheap bluetooth dongle solves my sig strength problems (plugged into the back of my monitor). But I took interest in the modification described above as a possible alternative approach. Not sure I will do it but it's nice to know there's a reliable alternative.

Jan 10, 2011 10:21 PM in response to castelletta

Brand new Mac Pro here and I'm reporting that my Magic Mouse looses connectivity almost daily. I work right next to my MP. I can reach out and touch it. Did I really just pay 6K for a mac that has poor BT connectivity? I'm trying to enjoy my new baby and ignore the lack of enough USB ports, etc...but this BT issue is really annoying. I'm going to be calling their support again today. Kinda wish Apple wasn't so popular like back in the day when they had time to make sure every detail was perfect. 😟

X423424X

Level 6

14,271 points

Jan 11, 2011 1:04 AM in response to itsamacthing

Well if you're that close to the machine I'll suggest the obvious. Did you check the battery level? Did you check that the batteries are in contact with their terminals? I mention that last point because I read in one thread (I read so many I don't remember where I read it) that some found that they needed to shim up the battery because it's positive terminal wasn't making good contact. Yeah, I know, 6K for a machine that includes a mouse and you have to put some kind of dinky crap in the mouse compartment to make it work!

Best solution is probably to call applecare. Their "solution" in a case like this is to simply replace the mouse. I went through that "ritual" before I realized it was a probably signal strength problem and got the dongle. Hey, you got nothing to lose and maybe you'll get lucky with the replacement 🙂

And finally, yeah, I think the days when they worked right out of the box are apparently over. Sigh 😟 I also had video card problems too but that's another story.

Poor Bluetooth reception and jerky mouse