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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

castelletta Author

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Dec 2, 2009 1:40 AM in response to Luba Cox

My Magic Mouse is a "favorite" from the beginning (I read that tip a long time ago) but it doesn't make any difference.

castelletta Author

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Dec 2, 2009 3:58 AM in response to Luba Cox

Do not forget:

a Bluetooth mouse like the Magic Mouse can track perfectly, without lags, without interruption, perfectly fluid as a wired mouse. With my external dongle the tracking is simply perfect as opposed to the sluggish tracking using MacPro internal Bluetooth module.

So if you experience some lags and/or disconnections take in account that this it's absolutely NOT a normal and unavoidable condition and that your mouse can work at best if Bluetooth signal is strong and constant.

Still I remember to all that although my external dongle solution (D-LINK DBT 120) is optimal for mouse tracking it's not exhaustive at all because during sleep mode mouse and keyboard can't wake the Mac Pro in any way.

Hinomura

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Dec 2, 2009 5:29 AM in response to castelletta

Hi i also experience BT problems with my Magic mouse.

The computer lose/find the mouse all the time making it very difficult to use.

I've managed to cope by using a BT dongle on a USB port but it's really annoying since there's not a big bunch of USB port on the Quad.

castelletta Author

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Dec 2, 2009 12:48 PM in response to Hinomura

And the worst fact is that only few dongle support crucial keyboard commands (option while start-up etc..)

Dec 2, 2009 7:53 PM in response to Luba Cox

Mine works great if I turn off my wireless router and I have the Mac Pro 2009.

castelletta Author

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Dec 3, 2009 1:35 AM in response to Mark Delgrosso

To me it doesn't seem a solution to turn off a router. It would be better to use a wired mouse instead 😉

Remember also that the wireless router it's not the cause. I have wifi routers, AirPort around me and with my external Bluetooth dongle the tracking remains perfect all the time.

There is something wrong with the MacPro internal Bluetooth module. THIS is the problem.

Dec 3, 2009 11:20 AM in response to castelletta

MacBooK Pro Running 10.6.2 With all current patches.

I have experimented by reverting to Leopard and find that the mouse is no longer jerky until the magic wireless mouse driver is installed. (Obviously without the driver the finger scrolling feature does not work). However I have no problem when using a Logitech mouse with wheel scrolling.

When the jerky mouse cursor is observed it will seem to have a 'vertical limit' it will move the cursor down but not up. It does not seem to be related to my router despite the Apple suggestion that interference with the 2.4 frequency may be responsible. I believe the driver is losing its pixel reference on the display and is the magic mouse driver update maybe the problem. The finger scrolling works fine even when the cursor is jerky.

castelletta Author

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Dec 3, 2009 12:42 PM in response to DaveClanMan

You are talking about a MacBook and similarities with Mac Pro are very few I think.

Apart from this I can confirm that my Mighty Mouse Wireless was jerky with Mac Pro 2009 well before the advent of the Magic Mouse driver update. And the same mouse now works very well with the external dongle and the driver update applied.

So to me it doesn't seems related.

Dec 3, 2009 9:36 PM in response to castelletta

I'm still not totally convinced that it is absolutely a problem with signal, however I have some ideas to try assuming that I might be wrong about this. The antenna is apparently on the bottom surface and relies on the signal being bounced off the surface the computer is sitting on. Wonder what material would be best to place under it as a reflector. I may just buy another USB dongle as I have a wired keyboard and wake from sleep not working on the mouse wouldn't be so bad as long as the keyboard worked.

Luba Cox

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Dec 3, 2009 10:06 PM in response to Tom Alperin

Well, I am giving up and getting a wireless mouse with a tiny receiver. I read it works on 2.4 Ghz which is quite crowded so hopefully no problems. The Magic Mouse looks great and if it worked I would have kept it, but surfing around there are better mice out there. Perhaps the Razer Mamba mouse??

castelletta Author

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Dec 4, 2009 1:49 AM in response to Tom Alperin

Tom, do you think that Apple has to write this outside the Mac Pro package?

CAUTION:
use it only on a wooden surface, ideally far from anything electric or metallic
orientate it with the terrestrial magnetism
carefully place you at the right side of this machine if you really want to make use of a bluetooth mouse
never move your mouse too fast using this machine, it can be jerky
if possible, stick with a wired mouse and keyboard

😀

castelletta Author

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Dec 4, 2009 1:57 AM in response to Luba Cox

Luba, if you if you can live with an external receiver you can stick with your Magic Mouse and buy an external dongle.

Magic Mouse is really a pleasure for me. It's light and beautiful. The batteries last long and after installing BetterTouchTool it can do everything I wanted and more.

I'm really happy with it! 🙂

Dec 4, 2009 3:52 AM in response to castelletta

While I agree the hardware differs the OS software and magic mouse firmware are the same so some of the problems maybe related.

I believe there exists several BT mouse related problems.

1. RFI (as admitted to possibility of by apple)

2. Poor BT implementation on certain Apple products (fixed with external dongle).

3. Firmware driver related problem in OS X 10.6.2 possibly due to introduction of Magic Mouse finger scrolling.

The earlier BT mouse problem appear to be hardware related in your case.

Regarding my Magic Mouse problem I find that my pointer / cursor sticking problem appears to be 'Mouse Mat" related. I have reverted to a solid white surface for my mouse mat surface and the MM appears to work as expected. So maybe the pattern on the original mat was throwing the mouse ?.

The fact that in my previous experiment of reverting to Leopard to without the MM updates when the cursor/pointer worked without hanging or stuttering although without the gestures (as an old two button mouse) seems to indicate that the latest driver has very sensitive optical surface recognition.

So tip for Magic Mouse users 'try a plain mat surface' HTH

castelletta Author

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Dec 4, 2009 7:07 AM in response to DaveClanMan

I'm very skeptical about your theory mainly for a reason:

The Magic Mouse share a common element with internal Broadcom BT module and external DLINK dongle and this element is the Magic Mouse software driver.

In addition I can confirm you that my Magic Mouse linked to the internal bluetooth module works bad on ANY surface and linked to the external dongle works beautifully on ANY surface.

I experimented also without the Magic Mouse drivers weeks ago, as you suggested, and found identical problems. And my old Mighty Mouse Wireless exhibit the same exact behavior; and now it functions beautifully with a Mac Mini with the same bluetooth drivers.

Dec 4, 2009 8:54 AM in response to castelletta

Well I think you have that right and are correct !. ( I am a new user of the Apple Magic Mouse)

However I noticed another reason for the Magic Mouse to lose focus and stall when moving vertically as previously described. The optical sensor is in the upper or front section of the mouse rather than in the center of the mouse as in my Logitech BT mouse. This means it is possibly for the user to move the sensor off the mat surface and it stops tracking due to a difference in height from the tracking surface.

Having been used to many types of mouse all of which had the ball or sensor in the physical center. I guess it is all part of 'the learning curve'. This problem is 100% repeatable so new users be aware !. It could be described as an design problem as is the need to avoid contact with the touch sensitive surface reported by other hard fisted users. The use of a bigger mouse mat is one solution. Other than these reservations all is now well.

Poor Bluetooth reception and jerky mouse