Jerky magic trackpad and wireless keyboard

Good idea, do let us know! 🙂

For about the last month or so (probably since 10.7.3 was released), I have noticed a similar problem with my magic trackpad. It's very sluggish and jerky, as though a higher-priority task was taking too much CPU. I am also running 10.7.3 on a MacBook Pro 15". As the OP said, it's almost impossible to use. In my situation, though, it's not just when downloading something. For me, it's nearly constant--almost every time I use it. I thought maybe it was some sort of interference with the Bluetooth, but I also have a magic mouse on the same system, and that works just fine--fast cursor movement and very responsive. I believe I've also seen the same sluggish response from the built-in trackpad, so I would think that would rule out a bluetooth problem.

Any pointers would be appreciated! Thanks!

--Nic

Hi there. This problem is talked about in at least four discussions on the apple support site, and none of them have a clear "silver bullet" answer.

However, my own experience with this problem (in my case, I'm lucky, it comes up more rarely) ... plus some of the responses, points to one thing at least:

The "jerky, sluggish trackpad" problem sometimes happens when the computer or its network activity is at a high pitch. Whether it just bogs down the CPU, or if instead it's creating some extra wifi interference or something (ok, that one does sound doubtful) who knows. But it's good to look at what kind of heavy network or CPU process might be going on during that "sluggish trackpad" time.

In my case, what triggered the jerky-trackpad symptom was when I had my Picasa application do a big sync which involved uploading 500 photos to google's servers. When that process ended, the trackpad was smooth as can be.

And what could it be in your case? One person with the problem said that they just got their computer. That brings to mind the fact that when your computer is newly installed, it needs to do a big indexing of your hard drive for the "spotlight" search tool in the far upper right of your Finder screen. When it's indexing, a moving dot appears in the middle of the magnifying-glass icon. OR... any other big process. Consider quitting all apps other than the finder... stopping a big download or upload or bit torrent (heavens no!) process.... thinking about oddball apps you have installed... etc.

Anyway, this is just one possibility for the trackpad problem... one that proved relevant in my case.

Eric