Poor Bluetooth reception and jerky mouse

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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

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Answer 1

Nov 13, 2009 11:38 PM in response to castelletta

This issue has been discussed many times. It's usually because the Mac Pro is wired wrong. Nobody seems to know why it was done like that or why Apple haven't changed it, but changing it yourself fixes bluetooth issues.

Here's how to do it: http://www.thelocale.org/files/howtos/mac-pro-bluetooth-howto.pdf

Very simple, fixes everything, and means you don't need to use a dongle...

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Answer 2

castelletta Author

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Nov 14, 2009 5:42 AM in response to Anonymoustache

Unfortunately the topic you are referring to is limited to earlier Mac Pro, not 2009 Mac Pro that are much different in terms of mother board and antennas location. I read it months ago but it was not applicable.

Not solution so far for the Mac Pro 2009. It seems...

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Answer 3

Nov 14, 2009 6:34 AM in response to castelletta

Sorry. Forgot they fixed that...

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Answer 4

Vinc26

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Nov 26, 2009 12:10 AM in response to castelletta

Hi, 🙂

Any idea how to fix this poor BT in the most recent MacPro (2009) ???

Help.

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Answer 5

castelletta Author

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Nov 26, 2009 1:49 AM in response to Vinc26

So far no idea 😟
Only workaround: external Bluetooth dongle.

I don't want to go for an AppleCare swap of the mother board or alike...that evidently can't fix the problem.

Do you have tried to talk to Apple guys?

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Answer 6

Nov 26, 2009 8:26 PM in response to castelletta

Mine works fine if unplug my router. I was told by Apple that Bluetooth and the Wi-Fi share similar signals.

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Answer 7

castelletta Author

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Nov 27, 2009 1:27 AM in response to Mark Delgrosso

I'm hoping that Apple did't meant THIS as the solution. It would be ridiculous.

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Answer 8

Nov 29, 2009 7:56 PM in response to castelletta

Hello Castelletta, I would like to share my findings as well.
I have a 2009 8 Core Mac Pro, brand new and less than 30 days old (bought from apple.com)

I have a bluetooth magic mouse and bluetooth mac keyboard that came shortly after my purchase of the mac pro.

Both devices work great on my Macbook Pro and Dell Laptop, which both are on the same surface and same room as my Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro is on top of my desk (within a foot range) and at no angle or distance does the magic mouse and keyboard work within a inch of pulling my hair out. Stuttering, connection lost, etc..

I have tried turning off my Airport Extreme and Macbook Pro to see if there was interference with no noticeable results.

Apple sent a tech to my house to replace the bluetooth module on the logic board and this did not fix the problem. It was also determined not to be software related, at least with my current firmware and OSX 10.6.2.

I have seen where older models mislabeled the wire, this does not seem to be the case with the 2009 Mac Pro.

It seems to me the reception is too weak and unreliable to use something that requires precise movements such as a mouse.

I am currently waiting on a return label to receive a full refund, I feel exchanging for another Mac Pro will more than likely not fix the problem. Other than this, the Mac Pro is one awesome machine.

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Answer 9

castelletta Author

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Nov 30, 2009 1:35 AM in response to Mad Appler Fan

I'm really sorry that you too are experiencing this real problem. But it's not really surprising.
Unfortunately it seems a widespread issue.

Reading your post I was sure that changing an hardware component wouldn't end up with a fix.

I'm quite disappointed that Apple still doesn't recognize the problem as a structural one and still try to fix it swapping singular parts.

The problem is at 99,9% a poor bluetooth signal due to the metallic enclosure of the Mac Pro.
It's for this precise reason that Apple has to provide us a solution or a workaround at minimum.

It would be a solution to give us an external BT module that fully support all the functions supported natively by other machines.

So please Apple, make a move recognizing this serious problem on a very expensive machine and taking care of us!

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Answer 10

castelletta Author

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Nov 30, 2009 1:44 AM in response to castelletta

At this point I invite you all, owners of a Mac Pro and of a bluetooth mouse, to post here a simple statement like this one:

"I'm experiencing the same problem."

Hopefully an increasing number of complaining people will move Apple to do something.

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Answer 11

Nov 30, 2009 2:27 AM in response to castelletta

I have exactly the same problem (2009 MacPro, Magic Mouse) -- also solved by using a D-Link DBT-120 dongle in one of the front USB ports.

Interestingly, my old bluetooth Mighty Mouse did not have these reception problems. I also noticed, that Apple supplied an external BT-antenna plug on the former G5 top models that utilized an almost identical, all aluminum outer case design.

Apple should supply an external BT-antenna that can be threaded through the holes in the case to the outside.

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Answer 12

castelletta Author

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Nov 30, 2009 2:33 AM in response to Jörg Pyrlik

Thank you Jörg for sharing your experience.

Yes in the G5 days Apple provided an external BT antenna .... right now Apple neglect the problem or wrongly think that was fixed.

PS: Using DLINK BT 120 can you put your Mac Pro out of sleep using BT keyboard or mouse?

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Answer 13

Nov 30, 2009 2:43 AM in response to castelletta

When using the DBT-120 the "Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer" option is dimmed in my case.

This DBT-120 solution does not seem to be very stable either -- my machine kernel-panicked already twice at startup (today and a couple of day ago)

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Answer 14

castelletta Author

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Nov 30, 2009 2:55 AM in response to Jörg Pyrlik

Ok, same behaviour as mine except for kernel panics.
I'm sorry that you have to cope also with them 😟

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Answer 15

Nov 30, 2009 8:23 AM in response to castelletta

I am an owner of a 2009 Mac Pro and am experiencing the exact same issues. I use an Apple bluetooth keyboard (aluminum model) and experience very frequent disconnections and stuttery performance. My keyboard and Mac Pro are only a few feet away.

Some observations I have made:

- Bluetooth was almost entirely unusable until I got the Apple Wireless Kit (Wi-Fi module) installed. Since this was installed bluetooth now holds a connection for more than a few seconds but is still poor compared to my other Macs (old G5, various MacBook Pros)...I haven't researched why this would be the case.

- This may be circumstantial as bluetooth is always going in and out on my system but bluetooth seems to be effected by intense video card use (in my case rendering using Apple Motion)

- in about one out of ten restarts the internal bluetooth module is not recognized by the machine. This seems to be always fixed by a restart again.

Since I use a wired mouse I think I will invest in a D-LINK DBT-120 module for my keyboard in the hope that at least the mouse should be able to wake the machine from sleep.

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