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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

Dec 8, 2009 4:51 AM in response to Luba Cox

Will the dongle wake the computer from sleep? I just bought a iogear one and it won't let my wireless keyboard or mouse wake the computer. I have to hit the power button under the desk every time. Anyone know of a dongle that does not disable the Mac's ability to wake from sleep?

Dec 8, 2009 10:43 AM in response to castelletta

Just to add another voice here: I have the same problem with my 2.26 gig 8-core Mac Pro. I have positioned my computer in a somewhat awkward place on my desk, but I sometimes have to operate my mouse within 8-10 inches of the machine to avoid jerky responses. Too bad - I love the Mac Pro and I really like the Magic Mouse with its finger swipe scrolling. This is my 3rd mouse - I had to trade in 2 wireless Might Mice because they got stuck all the time - that little scroll ball constantly (and I mean constantly) had to be cleaned to function at all. The Mighty Mouse is great, but unbelievably low range with the Mac Pro.

Apple's new slogan: The New Mac Pro - Powerful and Awkward.

castelletta Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 9, 2009 1:29 AM in response to Luba Cox

I just discovered these days that although D-LINK dongle is good for the tracking of the Magic Mouse (not for the waking after sleep) it drains batteries like a fool.

I have Apple Wireless Keyboard in use for half a year and changed the batteries only once.
From the day that I've started to use D-LINK dongle the batteries last ONLY ONE WEEK!!! It's incredible and unacceptable.

For another reason I ask:
Apple please give us a solution!! Hardware or software. We need to use our equipment as other iMac and MacBook users and it's a shame that we are here to complain about a machine that costs 2x, 3x, 4x the other Macs.

Dec 9, 2009 10:45 AM in response to Mark Delgrosso

Mac Pro 8-core. Same issue. Keyboard & Mighty Mouse were already included in my order and they are just still left in the desk. Can't use either of them since tracking of MM is horrible & KB looses connection several times a day. Bought Logitech mouse & keyboard with separate receivers that I put on the back of my Mac and happy.

Shame on Apple not fixing this.

gumsie

Level 4

2,179 points

Dec 13, 2009 2:14 AM in response to castelletta

Hi there, not sure what's going on with your BT but I rarely lose signal, (at least if the +Connection lost+ dialog is anything to go by). What I have noticed is that the MM is VERY sensitive to the surface it is used on. I seem to get perfect tracking on a completely flat medium matt brown surface.
On others if you examine the surface at exactly where the mouse jerks is it not slightly shiny or uneven there?
That said I option clicked the Bluetooth menu bar icon to see if signal strength was listed, it wasn't. But I did see a couple of things that I had never noticed before;
The +Bluetooth Diagnostics Utility+, +Bluetooth Explorer+ and the +Packet logger+ maybe one of these can help?

Dec 13, 2009 2:18 AM in response to gumsie

Since everybody's posting all sorts of trivial information (not a bad thing at all) in the pursuit of working this thing out, just thought I'd post that I was using my Magic Mouse yesterday and wanted to changed the batteries so I turned on my Mighty Mouse and connected it at the same time. Before doing anything else, I tested them at the same time (yeah, both hands) and found that the Magic Mouse was back to its slow speed (like it was before I fiddled with the bluetooth/airport wires) but the Mighty Mouse was normal.

Mosaica

Level 1

5 points

Dec 13, 2009 4:39 AM in response to Anonymoustache

Ok my experience with a early 2009 Mac Pro 8 core. I certainly have the same jerky problems as others. I have tried 7 different surfaces and they all are very different in workability. None works well though. And as the poster above said, a brown mat desktop pad is working best (still bad) for me. I also get the connectin lost popup at times. I also have tried the mouse in different locations to no use.

VERY INTERERESTING. I had my wife work the mouse under the same circumstances and IN FACT THE MAGIC MOUSE DID WORK. With her smaller hand and only her fingers touching the mouse! If she palmed the mouse, it would work very bad. I tried the same thing (we did this a dozen times btw) and could not get it to work at all. My hands cover the mouse no matter what.

I have contacted Apple and I am getting a new mouse to try...
Does anybody know where the BT antenna wire goes from the mobo? Anyone have any photos, I have not been able to find any...

Thanks.

gumsie

Level 4

2,179 points

Dec 13, 2009 7:54 AM in response to Mosaica

Mine sounds considerably different, as you can see in my second post [here|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2249623]. Above where the processors are you can see two mini circuit boards. I believe one is Airport and the other is Bluetooth. The area shown is just behind the front fan.

Mosaica

Level 1

5 points

Dec 13, 2009 9:29 AM in response to gumsie

Hmmm, my motherboard is black in color. The airport location is towards the front of the case at the bottom and the bluetooth is located lower right, ie, at the bottom and towards the back of the case just in font of the back fan...

castelletta Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 14, 2009 9:29 AM in response to gumsie

Sure the surface can have an effect on mouse tracking, for any kind of mouse.

BUT

The truth is that the cause, to me, is elsewhere.
In fact on the same, identical surface my mouse tracks perfectly with the external dongle and tracks very badly with the MP internal Bluetooth module.

castelletta Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 15, 2009 1:51 AM in response to Community User

I can tell you that I'm able to use keystrokes upon boot time with DBT-120.
It may be due to the firmware update that I've done 1-2 years ago to that dongle.
I think Apple still has this update in the DOWNLOAD section of her site. It was a Bluetooth update, made for the Dlink DBT-120.

Still not able to wake from sleep via BT mouse/keyboard.

Still a shame that a 3000€ machine can't make basic use of a simple and crucial device as a wireless mouse. I think that Apple has to spend some month less on designing new hardware and to focus on these issues that affect the interaction with a Mac much more than what external shape does.

These days it seems incredible: we are suffering because of jerky mouses, loose BT connections and keyboards that eat 3 AA batteries per week. This forum has tons of people complaining about BT issues that plague Mac Pros as well as other machines.

So, before causing more and more frustration on your users, please Apple acknowledge these problems and fix them all as soon as possible. Thanks

Mosaica

Level 1

5 points

Dec 16, 2009 8:21 AM in response to castelletta

Apple has sent me my second Magic Mouse, it of course, does not work any better. I have found out two things in the mean time. If I take the battery cover off of the MM it works much much better. I am still waiting on the Apple engineers for a response.

castelletta Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 16, 2009 10:23 AM in response to Mosaica

Incredible!

Mosaica I tried the same after reading your post.
Magic Mouse without battery cover. It works and pretty nice.

So it seems also a Magic Mouse design flaw....
...we are still awaiting a solution from Apple.

castelletta Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 19, 2009 11:39 AM in response to Mosaica

Maybe due to the aluminum shell that surrounds itself the Magic Mouse is the worst mouse to use with a Mac Pro, a Mac that already suffers from Bluetooth poor performance.

I imagine that removing the battery cover the BT signal is more free to propagate without glitches.
It would be useful if Apple plans to replace Magic Mouse alu cover with a plastic one....and give us a swap, please.

Dec 23, 2009 10:55 AM in response to castelletta

OK, I'm having this problem too. (MP 2009). I've bought a Belkin mini bluetooth dongle which works fine, other than I have to re-pair the MM on every reboot. Am I missing a setting, is there something I need do to get the MM automatically recognised at startup?

Poor Bluetooth reception and jerky mouse