castelletta
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Q: 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 8:24 AM

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castelletta

Q: Poor Bluetooth reception and jerky mouse

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  • by castelletta,

    castelletta castelletta Dec 28, 2009 9:00 AM in response to Mosaica
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    Dec 28, 2009 9:00 AM in response to Mosaica
    I can't understand why apple engineers and support team like to deny a problem consistently affecting so many people with the 2009 MacPro Bluetooth.

    Surely we are not here to have fun. Do Apple thinks so?

  • by Cyrus.K,

    Cyrus.K Cyrus.K Dec 28, 2009 1:00 PM in response to castelletta
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 28, 2009 1:00 PM in response to castelletta
    Ok, this has probably been discussed more or less. Had difficulties with the magic mouse same ol' same ol' lag/herky jerky. Frustrating as ****, tried all the common sense things ie. tower placement, removing tower panel, changing mouse surfaces, removing mouse battery panel (helped a bit). FINALLY got it working smoothly with the "rewiring" guide. Now I can put the mouse battery cover back on, shift the tower back etc etc. Woohoo!!!! http://guides.macrumors.com/AddingBluetooth_and_Wireless_to_a_MacPro

  • by Vinc26,

    Vinc26 Vinc26 Dec 28, 2009 1:32 PM in response to Cyrus.K
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 28, 2009 1:32 PM in response to Cyrus.K
    Again and again... there is a big difference : the MacPro 2009 is totaly different ! Your guides concerns only pre-2009 MacPro.

  • by digginestdogg,

    digginestdogg digginestdogg Dec 28, 2009 1:52 PM in response to Vinc26
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    Dec 28, 2009 1:52 PM in response to Vinc26
    Agreed. It worked for my Mac Pro 2,1 but that is the first gen model not the 2009 model as I mentioned in my previous post. People keep forgetting that there are several generations of Mac Pro out there now and they are substantially different main boards

  • by hkseo100,

    hkseo100 hkseo100 Dec 28, 2009 9:27 PM in response to castelletta
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 28, 2009 9:27 PM in response to castelletta
    I'm using Targus ACB10US (Silver model), and it works fine. (It wakes from sleep)
    but it's weird.

    If i don't have a USB Mouse plugged in, the Wake from Bluetooth is grayed, (but still wokrs), but if i do hav a mouse plugged in, I can check the box/uncheck. (and still works fine)

  • by hkseo100,

    hkseo100 hkseo100 Dec 28, 2009 9:59 PM in response to hkseo100
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 28, 2009 9:59 PM in response to hkseo100
    (Sorry my model is Mac Pro 1,1 not Nehalem, idk why i typed that in , ithink i was reading a differnet post and writing at the same time)

  • by Mosaica,

    Mosaica Mosaica Dec 29, 2009 5:06 AM in response to hkseo100
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 29, 2009 5:06 AM in response to hkseo100
    Again, I have a 2009 Mac Pro and the BT *****.

  • by castelletta,

    castelletta castelletta Dec 29, 2009 6:38 AM in response to castelletta
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 29, 2009 6:38 AM in response to castelletta
    It's incredible. Two months later and Apple still hasn't acknowledged there is a problem here.

  • by Anonymoustache,

    Anonymoustache Anonymoustache Dec 29, 2009 7:06 AM in response to castelletta
    Level 1 (100 points)
    Dec 29, 2009 7:06 AM in response to castelletta
    Two months? It's been going on for years!

  • by castelletta,

    castelletta castelletta Dec 31, 2009 7:15 AM in response to Anonymoustache
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 31, 2009 7:15 AM in response to Anonymoustache
    Sure, but I was referring to the time I opened this thread.
    Let's think that Apple doesn't knew before about this problem on the Mac Pro 2009 family.......

  • by CrustMaker,

    CrustMaker CrustMaker Dec 31, 2009 9:10 PM in response to castelletta
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 31, 2009 9:10 PM in response to castelletta
    After suffering from awful wifi and bluetooth reception from my intel first generation Mac Mini (several months of parsing the forum didn't fix the problem), i too have poor magic mouse behavior with my 2009 Mac Pro.
    I am sitting on the left side of the computer so i didn't try the "walk on the right side" trick.
    Nonetheless i have tried the "remove the hatch of the magic mouse" trick and it definitely improved the reception.
    I hope Apple will find a driver fix but i don't believe it will happen. My analysis is poor design on both MacPro and Magic Mouse. I think i will wait until my warranty is about to expire and ask for a change of the bluetooth module from the Mac Pro, unless a magic driver is released.

  • by sixgunaz,

    sixgunaz sixgunaz Jan 4, 2010 3:54 PM in response to CrustMaker
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 4, 2010 3:54 PM in response to CrustMaker
    We are using several Mac Pro Early 2009, as mentioned earlier we had the same problem with all of them. We initially used the DB Dongle and it was working fine for a while per our procedure for installation, but then more often than not - the devices would lose comm, then when rebooting they would have to be re-paired, etc. We were done with the dongle after a week. Our final fix - we bought an external BT Antenna off of Ebay, total cost $8 for two off some guy matashardware, it arrived in 4 days. Unhooked the old one, installed the new and poked it through one of the vent holes in the back of the case (had to enlarge one vent hole slightly) and ran the antenna under the case up near the front panel, held in place with some tape, you cannot tell its there. Total install time less than 5 minutes. BT works now as well as it does on the Imac. Crap design, Apple does not want to admit it, but we needed a consistent wireless OEM solution and now we got it. Only complaint we have had with the entire system - its a work of art otherwise. Fortunately, the fix is cheap...

  • by CrustMaker,

    CrustMaker CrustMaker Jan 5, 2010 3:44 AM in response to sixgunaz
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 5, 2010 3:44 AM in response to sixgunaz
    Hey sizgunaz, would you mind posting some pictures of your External BT fix ? So that we know if similar fix can easily be done ?

  • by sixgunaz,

    sixgunaz sixgunaz Jan 5, 2010 9:56 AM in response to CrustMaker
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 5, 2010 9:56 AM in response to CrustMaker
    There is nothing really to post image wise, you simply unplug the old antenna, plug in the new one and run it outside the case through one slightly enlarged vent hole near the back of the case. Once you pull the processor tray, this entire process becomes very obvious. The BT module is near the back of the main board, you cannot miss it, along with its antenna attached. We are going on 3 days now using the Apple BT full time and FINALLY its working like it should. This antenna fix is a sure thing. Not one single problem.

  • by omillar,

    omillar omillar Jan 8, 2010 3:01 PM in response to castelletta
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 8, 2010 3:01 PM in response to castelletta
    I am experiencing the exact same problem as many of those in this thread. I just got off the phone with Apple and I'm very unhappy about how this is being handled. I wish they would think logically about solutions... from the customer's perspective and not the perspective of minimizing losses.
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