Airport interfering with mouse and keyboard?

Question

Airport interfering with mouse and keyboard?

This afternoon I moved our Airport and cable modem from our bedroom into my home office, where it now sits right next to my computer. Ever since I've had nothing but buggy problems with my mouse and keyboard. My mouse is wireless but the keyboard is connected via USB. Sometimes the keyboard won't work at all, sometimes the mouse won't work at all, and sometimes the mouse does funny things. For instance, when I click on an app icon in the dock instead of opening the app it opens a Finder window with the app selected, or it acts as if it's doing an option-click and gives me funny menus. Sometimes it just scrolls funny - once my Safari windows started flickering when I tried to scroll. The weirdest thing is my keyboard, which doesn't work at all 70% of the time. It's just a USB connection, not bluetooth, so I can't figure out why it would suddenly start misbehaving.

I'm really stumped, and getting very frustrated. I assumed that an Apple keyboard and mouse would play nice with an Apple Aiport base station, but maybe not. Is it possible the Airport is causing interference?

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Jan 24, 2013 6:14 PM

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Answer 1

Johnb-one

Level 6

9,156 points

Jan 25, 2013 9:35 PM in response to Cedric Hohnstadt

yes, it may be. If you can, try using a wired mouse, and change the channel on your

Airport, and the frequency, maybe check for interference robustness. I have found that BluTooth on the Mac pro is not so good, so I went out and bought a usb plugin for BT, which sits at the front of my tower and helps with that. Also, see if moving your Airport and modem further away helps things. Oh, and try running disk Utilities, repair permissions and check for updates (it's worth a try). If you are using an aluminum keyboard, I think there was an update released just for that alone.....

see also if there is an update for your mouse's software, or what the buttons are set to open by default

hopefully this helps

John B

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Answer 2

Jan 27, 2013 4:21 AM in response to Johnb-one

Thanks, those are some great suggestions. Actually, I think I may have figured out the problem. By using the "Keyboard Viewer" in OSX, I was able to determine that my Command Key was sometimes sticking. Well, it wasn't *really* sticking but my Mac would think I was pressing it and not letting go for some reason. That was causing a lot of the weird behavior, including some of the erratic mouse issues. My keyboard was running through a very old USB hub, and so was my webcam which I also discovered was curiously not working. I bought a new USB hub and so far the problems seem to be gone. It's very odd that the Hub went bad at precisely the same time I moved the airport into my office, but maybe in all my unhooking and re-hooking of wires I shorted it somehow?

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Answer 3

Jan 27, 2013 5:09 PM in response to Cedric Hohnstadt

If you ever need to use the Startup "snag-keys" for alternate booting, you will need your keyboard directly wired into a USB on the chassis, not on any Hub, not even the one in a display.

Apple supplies a short USB extension cord to help, but it may not be long enough, and it is keyed so that you cannot use more than one. You can buy a USB extension cord, but remember the limit is 15 feet, including the wiring inside the computer and inside the keyboard itself.

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