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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

Luba Cox

Level 1

0 points

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

Level 1

11 points

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

Level 1

11 points

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

Level 1

11 points

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.

castelletta Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 4, 2009 9:09 AM in response to DaveClanMan

You are right about sensor position and for this reason I think that we have to follow Apple suggestion to throw away mouse pads and use the Magic Mouse directly on desktop surface.

I've done it and it's a pleasure.

Dec 4, 2009 9:35 AM in response to castelletta

No I don't. I think "For optimal Bluetooth mouse performance, place the mouse underneath the computer." would be better and more concise.

Seriously though, I might try this just to see if this is the actual problem. I currently see three different possibilities.

1. Software conflict that does not affect USB dongles.
2. Wireless connection problem due to less than optimal placement of the antenna.
3. Interference from processors.

I'm not sure this is possible, however the card is directly behind one of my processors and jumpy mouse syndrome does appear to be most pronounced during heavy computer activity.

I still have my hopes up for it being #1, but the USB dongle is a really good solution with a wired keyboard.

Dec 4, 2009 10:18 AM in response to castelletta

Bluetooth runs at about at 2.4-2.4835 GHz and changes channels automatically to avoid interference with other devices.

The Nehalem processors in current MacPros run starting at 2.26GHz, however can increase in speed on individual cores to make programs that are not multi processor aware run faster. I have to wonder if processor speed changes could be causing the problem, which leads to a couple questions.

1. Are you experiencing the problem and not able to solve it by changing your mouse pad*?
2. What speed and number of processors?

I have the 8 core 2.26GHz.

I wonder if there is a utility that would disable this feature on the processors for testing purposes. Another site I frequent had a long article on concerns about processor temperatures while running iTunes that turned out to be what is expected when a program bumps up the speed of a single core, however I'm interested now in possibly using this as a test to see if iTunes has an effect on mouse performance.

*Using a black mouse pad does definitely affect performance for me, however it's a separate issue and not nearly as annoying as the problem with the built-in bluetooth.

Message was edited by: Tom Alperin

castelletta Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 4, 2009 11:03 AM in response to Tom Alperin

Very very intriguing theory Tom!

My Mac Pro is identical to your: 8 core at 2.26GHz

It may be interesting to know if 8 core at 2.66GHz and 2.93GHz exhibit the same mouse lag.
Please, people complaining, can you post your config too?

Luba Cox

Level 1

0 points

Dec 5, 2009 8:17 PM in response to castelletta

Where do you have your BT dongle? If I go your route I would want to put it in one of the keyboard USB slots. Hopefully, enough power comes out of the keyboard USB for the BT dongle to work. 🙂

You say your keyboard can't wake your Mac Pro, do you also have a BT keyboard too? I would use a wired keyboard so hopefully using a BT dongle won't affect the keyboard to such extent it won't wake the computer.

I got the Logitech Performance MX. Overall it's good, but a bit too big for me I think as I am feeling some wrist pain after using for a couple of hours. Also, I think it doesn't poll often enough so sometimes there's a lag/unresponsiveness. The lag is certainly not as often as with the Magic Mouse. The Logitech Performance MX has the same features as the Magic Mouse plus then some. I can scroll left & right, a dedicated button for exposé, etc. so it's good if it fits your hands.

Dec 5, 2009 8:57 PM in response to Luba Cox

My keyboard is wireless. I want my mouse and keyboard to both be wireless. Less desk clutter. Right now they both work but the mouse is just sluggish. I bought this dongle thinking it would act the same. It actually disables the Mac Bluetooth and unchecks "allow this device to wake computer from sleep".

Dec 7, 2009 2:22 AM in response to castelletta

"I'm experiencing the same problem."
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4

castelletta Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 7, 2009 9:57 AM in response to Luba Cox

Luba, if you use a wired keyboard and a D-LINK dongle I'm sure you'll enjoy the Magic Mouse.

And yes! I'm using the bluetooth keyboard, for this reason I have problems waking the mac from sleep mode.

My dongle is plugged, via a USB extension cable, in the back USB port of the Mac Pro. The dongle itself is located just 20cm from my mouse in front.

Luba Cox

Level 1

0 points

Dec 7, 2009 5:05 PM in response to castelletta

castelletta, thanks for the info! i read D LINK is a good company, so I'll get the dongle from there. I think it's better than getting one for a no-name dongle. Agree?

I like the Unifying receiver from Logitech because it's so small I can plug it in one of the USB ports on the keyboard. So if the dongle is that small, it would be beautifully ideal situation!!

Poor Bluetooth reception and jerky mouse