2018 Mac Mini bluetooth and Wi-Fi interference

I had the same issue with one of the latest MBPros with USB-C ports.

As other posters have noted the problem is interference in the 2.4GHz band due to leakage from poor quality USB-C cables.

Intel wrote a white paper on this in 2012: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/io/universal-serial-bus/usb3-frequency-interference-paper.html

In my case it was USB-C to 3 x USB 3.0 hub with a 15cm lead.

The solution was simply to wrap the lead in aluminium (or tin) foil.

Problem solved!

I have no brief for Apple but this is not strictly a problem with the Mac mini - it's the low quality cables and shielding on external USB-C devices.

I have two USB-C to 3 x USB 3 hubs on my Mac mini - 2 from the same manufacturer work perfectly, the other needs foil wrapped around the cable to stop it licking bluetooth and WiFi.

What I find really annoying about Apple is its crazy policy of pushing connection standards that few others use and sending us all into dongle ****.

Unless that changes my 2015 MBPro with convenient USB 3 and HDMI ports and and SD Card slot (plus2 useless Thunderbolt 2 ports) will be my last. With the Mac mini it's not so bad as it - and it's current 3 dongles - is not moved around.

For both laptop and Mini, with the Option key depressed, click on the wifi icon in the upper menu bar. A window will open giving details about the connected network. Make a screen shot for each computer and post then here.

But the transmission rate of the min @48Mbps is lower than the 54 for the laptop.

What router do you have? Both computers are connecting to 802.11g network that is old and slow.

G is also only 2.4 GHz. Next better network is N which has both 2.4 and 5 GHz. and is faster. Best would be AC which is 5 GHz only.

Also, you are running WEP security. That very very old encryption can easily be hacked in under 10 minutes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14840943

I would get a new router that supports AC and N and WAP2 encryption.

My problem was inconsistent, variable and slow internet speeds. The ferrite cores from Amazon shown below solved my problem. I'm not sure what the culprit was but installing these ferrite cores on power, data, and ethernet cables solved the issue. It's been 4 days now with no problems. That $12 purchase fixed what was beginning to look like a $2300 mistake. I saw them mentioned on a forum, but I don't remember which one.

MK, what I found was couple things I did before the router. So I am not sure which did it. A significant change was when I moved my wifi printer (epson 2500) about 10 feet away from my Mac mini. I also moved the 2.4 ghz router about 5 feet away from mini. That didn’t seem to change anything. But what seemed to make another big change was use a HDMI cable and not the VGA cable from my HP monitor. That seemed to change everything. Would I move my printer back next to mini? Maybe if I am the mood to juggle cables around. LOL. On one of the blogs entries its said to use ferrite to surround cables. I did that on the power cable of the. HP monitor (both sides of cable). So no disconnecting of track pad 2 or keyboard 2 both from apple. But I do have once in awhile my entire monitor goes black and then comes back on ok. But sometimes it goes all snow and I have to hard reset by holding down the power switch to reboot it. Then it’s ok. I doesn’t happen much. Maybe twice in a month (I have my Mac mini 2018 for about 1 12 month. All said. I did change it to 5 Ghz and of course don't know if it works or not.

@Coqui13, feel your pain with the iMac, luckily I have just purchased an Alienware computer for daily chores and have set the Mac aside exclusively for managing photo library duties. Whilst the AW 17R5 is exceptional, Win10 still has its quirks with such a customised build so even with that it’s not all plain sailing.

I am replying due to your keyboard issue, I suffered similar and ended up having to remove keyboard batteries and then hold the power button on the keyboard for much longer than the stated time which didn’t just put numbers up for Bluetooth pairing but put the keyboard into some kind of reset (eg drops all remembered connections) mode. From memory I think I got a flashing light on the keyboard and then it finally connected. I think I may have connected it to another apple device in the past and it was focussed on this. I couldn’t locate any Bluetooth.plist files to delete in Mojave. Other than this try the Bluetooth reset function by (I think), holding down either the SHIFT and OPTION buttons whilst clicking the Bluetooth bar (if you have it set to on show on the top toolbar) and run the debug option. Apologies if you’ve tried all this already but thought it was worthy of mention.

I’d attach a screenshot but when I just tried to take a photo using my Apple iPhone camera uploading to an Apple forum it said it can’t do it because the image is over 5Mb; just about says it all

:-(

Good luck getting some fixes.

I have the same issue too, wifi signal will drop when using an external ssd (type c enclosure) connected to the 2nd usb port. So when I swap to the other usb port, there is no problem.

I have another external hdd that's usb 3.0, no problem when connected to either usb ports.

So in my case, the culprit seems to be the 2nd usb port when use with a type c external drive. Will experiment with the rest of the usb c ports too.....

Jan 21st: “. I have nothing new from my Mac Min 2012 setup to my new 2018 setup.”

April 9th: “...everything worked fine on the mac mini 2014. ...and NO USB-C or USB 3 cords in use when this happens. “

April 14th: “AND, the USB-C hub is also wrapped in foil as well.”

There are contradictions in your updates, nevertheless it does look like your setup is suffering from “peripheral obesity”. The mini ‘18 has 6 USB ports, the use of a hub is mostly unnecessary. The LAN port easily delivers 1 Gbps - no issue.

The point is, when you’re moving from an older Mini, you should spend some time optimizing your configuration. Leave the old for the new wherever possible. Maybe your next update should be a USB inventory (so it can be slimmed down), and also your Router/WiFi setup (if you’re up to it).

Are there LED bulbs nearby? If so try without the LED bulbs burning. I know, it sounds stupid, but sometimes it makes a difference.

Same issue here. I have a LOT of equipment jammed behind an LG 34" curved monitor. I got the LG because I thought the Dell 34" Ultrasharp was the issue (a work provided monitor). I think it got worse. I also have KRK studio monitors that are picking up a lot of interference as well so I'm battling a lot of issues.

I'm getting longer cables to get the mini away from other things - though it is going to be messy.

After dropping around $4K on this thing, I'm am more than a bit disappointed to hear I'm not the only one having the issue. The same setup with a MacBookPro Mid-2015 did not have the problem.

The LED issue may be valid, not necessarily that of the actual bulbs but a combination of the bulbs and what they are installed into. Did some checking on frequencies etc and it was noted that the support architecture that supplies and coverts the incoming power can create disruptive frequencies. Is that enough to make Bluetooth flacky? I think that this as well as the fact that the Bluetooth installation in the Mac minis is rather weak contribute to it's off and on failure.

I have this same issue, and it isn't just the Magic Mouse. My Apple wireless keyboard and trackpad all disconnect and reconnect seemingly at random. The problem is more pronounced when the CPU is under heavy load, so I suspect there might be a thermal issue.

Inexcusable, really, to have ZERO functioning inputs at random times. I've found that plugging a charging cable into the keyboard will oftentimes "wake up" all three devices, but it's still a pain, and interrupts my workflow.

Seriously ****** off about this. Macs are supposed to get out of the way so I can work, not make demands on my time and attention like some discount Windows machine.