Mouse cursor lags with external monitor

Just piling on here.

I just got a new rMBP 13" Late 2013 (512Gb, 16Gb, Core i7), and can confirm this issue also occurs with the Dell U3014 display. I have it connected using the MiniDP to DP cable that came with the monitor (MiniDP connected to a Thunderbolt port).

The monitor displays the screen but the mouse cursor "pulses" about every 2/3 second on either monitor, and is noticeable when moving the mouse as a "skipping". Toggling the DisplayPort 1.2 compatibility mode on the monitor appears to resolve the issue on both screens until the monitor is power-cycled when the issue returns.

Additionally, the image on the external monitor is not as sharp as I would have expected. Text seems to have a "halo" around it. This is not noticeable when switching the U3014 input to my Windows box (DVI, ATI FirePro W5000) where the image is razor-sharp. The monitor is set to "Best for Display" in the Display Preferences, but switching to Scaled doesn't appear to make any difference. Native resolution on the U3014 is 2560x1600.

Symptom : Lagging & Unstable Mouse

Model : MacBookPro; 13" brand new as of jan 2014

OS : Mavericks 10.9.1

Monitors : 2 x Dell U3014 ; both setup for DP 1.2

each monitor with dp -> DP cable to individual dp ports on Mac. ( not daisy chained )

Mouse : generic PC USB ( tow different ones tried )

Reading another post in here on this subject I tried something.....

Went to to single U3014 with laptop closed and set Dell - DP 1.1 : That worked

Plugged in second U3014 and switched it to DP 1.1 : That worked

Open Laptop with both monitors enabled and hooked up as DP 1.1 : That worked

Switched both Dells back to DP 1.2 : Still worked .. go figure

Shutdown & Reboot Laptop open and both monitors attached in DP 1.2 mode : That worked and it is stable.

Did not expect the last two lines , but I am not going to agrue with the result, my guess though is that it will fail again in a day or two and the mystery will show itslef again

Regards

Kevin hanna

I saw the same behavior on my new Dell U2713HM. I was using a Logitech wireless mouse. I fixed the problem by plugging the mouse tranciever directly into the USB of the Mac. If I plug the tranciever into the monitor and connect the monitor USB to the Mac, the jumpy mouse problems return.

juls

It appears that I can confirm this issue as well, a customer came in with a Retina 15" MacBook Pro, fully decked out with every option. He said it cost him nearly $4,000.

We absolutely could not understand why every time an external monitor was plugged in, either Thunderbolt/Mini DisplayPort OR HDMI, that the performance just took a nosedive, and it would take the computer as long as four seconds to do something trivial like a mouse click on a menu item.

This sounds like a firmware/graphics card driver issue that needs to be addressed. Customer was running 10.9.3.

- Apple Certified Sales Professional

You don't have to toggle the DisplayPort 1.2 state to temporarliy fix the issue. You will notice if you just go into the monitor menu, move up and down the menu items, and exit, it will fix it just the same.

It certainly is irritating 😠

Out of interest, are you 100% sure it's the mouse freezing and not the display freezing?

In my case, I think it's actually the display that freezes, and when it un-freezes, the mouse pointer will suddenly jump to its actual current position (given all the mouse movements I made during the freeze.)

Try this: have some animated content playing in a window (e.g. a video) and then turn off the external display. In my case, the video also freezes when the mouse 'freezes'. When I turn the display back on again, the video will suddenly jump forward, suggesting it was playing fine during the freeze, and it was just the display updates that were frozen.

Also - did you have this problem before you updated to 10.9.4?

Hey guys,

I´m having the same problem here but also a fix (at least it works for me)

Setup: MBA 2014, i7, 8GB, 256GB; LG Flatron 22EA63, Magic Mouse, Steelseries Sensei Raw.

For me unplugging the external display gets rid of all mouse lag, then when i plug in the display again the lag stays away.

So what I recommend is plugging in the display after the mouse is connected.

cheers

I have been experience this problem lately, both with an existing Microsoft USB Wireless Mobile Mouse 400, and with a new GearHead BT7950 Bluetooth mouse I bought today.

It definitely happens every time I have a YouTube video window playing on my external monitor, both in Chrome or in Firefox.

The monitor is connected by MiniDP and I have tried two different monitors with the same result.

If I move the YouTube browser window to the laptop screen, the lag goes away within 20-30 seconds.

It must have something to do with the amount of data passing through the MiniDP/Thunderbolt bus, which must share some low level bus or clock with USB and Bluetooth.

I have noticed. A lot of it has to do with the position of the macbook. I had the same exact issue and all i did was slightly move my macbook towards the mouse since the back was facing my mouse and my lid was 80% closed.

I opened the lid slightly and move it a little towards the mouse and the jerks went off right away. I also had the same issue with the wifi. I moved the position of the macbook and placed it right under the thunderbolt display and the wifi started working in clamshell mode. None of it makes sense to me but it worked.

The proposed solution by @nakrill and @alxdw worked for me as well. I moved my wireless mouse USB dongle from the right side (where it was next to the HDMI port) to the left and the mouse drag/skip went away.

My setup:

15" Macbook Pro Retina mid 2015

El Capitan

Logitech wireless mouse

HDMI port connecting to a Samsung monitor

Just a quick update to this...while moving the mouse USB dongle to the right side did help significantly with the mouse lag, it didn't eliminate it completely. I hope Apple fixes this with an OS update soon, as this is really annoying and frustrating.

This seems to have been my issue as well. I had an XLR audio cable sitting next to it, the hdmi cable was loose and a usb cable overlaying it. I fixed the connection and moved the other cables away and that seems to have fixed the issue.

Same problem here with a new 2013 Haswell MBP Retina 15" with Intel+Nvidia card with OS Maverick.

NOTE: The trick proposed by Kraasa of forcing Sleep and reactivating the laptop seem to work for me.

guys, you are right.

when I change the DDC/CI settings on the display, it's immediatly gone (maybe it's any setting). However, if you turn of the monitor, you have to set it again.

Whatever the reason.

Yes, its gone for me too with 10.9.3 that was just released 😀