Bluetooth keyboard and mouse problems

I've had my Mac for a year and a half now, and my bluetooth keyboard and mouse for almost as long. But I have had this intermittent problem with the them ever since, suddenly the keyboard will disconnect and then the mouse will become slow to repsonse, jerky and often it partially lose functionality such as the buttons will stop working or the scroll wheel.

I've been involved in many threads on the apple forums, which I am no longer a part of, and there a numerous others who experience similar problems, but I have been unable to find a solution to this problem.

Apple donot want to know about it, I took my machine to the a genius bar and was told by one of their technical "experts" who spent 5 minutes looking at my machine that there was nothing whatsoever wrong with it. The technical help lines were no use either.

I have tried multiple P-RAM resets, repairing permissions, but nothing seems to have had any effect.

I forked out a lot of money for these accessories and they don't even work as well as a cheap 30 quid job from tesco!

Does anyone else have the same kind of problems? Does anyone have any new suggestions as to what I can do to fix this?

I heard that there may be a problem with cross coupling with the airport lines and the bluetooth on the mother board, but no-one from apple seems to want to comment on that other than to say it's "rumours".

I've seen this from time to time as well. I actually chalked it up to Bluetooth being flakey, as it operates in the 2.4GHz band (the same band that 802.11b/g/n operates in, as well as a host of other products including cordless phones).

Typically within a few seconds of the mouse going wonky, it straightens itself out. And of course, the farther away I am from other wireless devices, the more stable it tends to be.

I have not experienced the occasional disconnects since the last Bluetooth firmware update that came out just a week or so ago.

My system worked better after 10.5.7 for a while, then I started having problem again.

STU9000 said:

My system worked better after 10.5.7 for a while, then I started having problem again.

Click to expand...

There was a Bluetooth specific update just recently too. Do you remember getting that?

Bluetooth Firmware Update 2.0

STU9000 said:

I heard that there may be a problem with cross coupling with the airport lines and the bluetooth on the mother board, but no-one from apple seems to want to comment on that other than to say it's "rumours".

Click to expand...

BTW, this is complete and utter bunk.

Bluetooth is collaborative with WiFi, the chipsets are supplied from reference designs by Broadcom and are identical designs to those used in laptops from countless other vendors. The only difference is that Apple designs their own drivers.

Now, with that said, Bluetooth is known to run into interference from other outside devices that run on 2.4GHz. This is a problem with Bluetooth technology in general, which is why it hasn't completely dethroned RF-based systems entirely.

cwa107 said:

There was a Bluetooth specific update just recently too. Do you remember getting that?

Bluetooth Firmware Update 2.0

Click to expand...

If it was released as an official update I'd have got it.

Maybe the problem is interference, either way I am not happy about forking out a large sum for something that looks like but doesn't work very well.

STU9000 said:

If it was released as an official update I'd have got it.

Maybe the problem is interference, either way I am not happy about forking out a large sum for something that looks like but doesn't work very well.

Click to expand...

The symptoms I'm describing are very infrequent and not what I would characterize as not working very well. Every once in awhile when I wake the mouse up, it doesn't track exactly the way I'm moving the mouse, but in a few seconds it's fine.

Regardless of the price, the technology is fundamentally flawed in that it works in the same spectrum as a lot of other devices and is subject to interference. If you feel some innate need to assign blame, it should be placed on the FCC who has allowed so many different technologies to share the same band. But quite honestly, you would run into this with a $400 netbook or a $5000 Alienware gaming system. It doesn't matter who makes it, all vendors share the same commodity parts supplied by just a couple of different companies.

My recommendation would be to try using the system in a different area, get it away from all other wireless devices, just to see if you can isolate the problem to outside interference.

Also, do note that microwave ovens are known to disrupt wireless devices, so make sure you're far away from anything like that.

I don't think the problem is interference, because the mouse usually begins to work again if I disconnect it and then reconnect. And the problems seems to affect my keyboard first, then the mouse, but while the mouse is lagging the keyboard works fine.

What kind of keyboard and mouse are they?

The apple bluetooth ones, you know the aluminium silver one and the mighty mouse. The scroll button sporadically stop functioning as well, and you have to rub it vigourously with a damp cloth to clean it out to get it working again, sometimes a greasy finger also helps. I don't know why they just didn't settled for a wheel, simple and reliable. Space age technology is all fair and well, so long as it works!

You seem to be inserting unnecessary rants about Apple amidst your problems. There is no reason to do this as none of it is constructive. Let's sick to the problem at hand.

If your gear is new, cwa107's suggestion that there could be a source of interference sounds logical. Interference can be sporadic and does not necessarily have to disable everything completely. Something can work one moment and not the next. What do you have operating around your Mac?

STU9000 said:

The apple bluetooth ones, you know the aluminium silver one and the mighty mouse. The scroll button sporadically stop functioning as well, and you have to rub it vigourously with a damp cloth to clean it out to get it working again, sometimes a greasy finger also helps. I don't know why they just didn't settled for a wheel, simple and reliable. Space age technology is all fair and well, so long as it works!

Click to expand...

Well, the Mighty Mouse is well known to have issues with the scroll ball. I've never owned one, so I can't speculate as to the other problems.

But I do own an Aluminum Wireless Keyboard - and that has been very reliable. The only problems I've had revolve around the mouse, and usually it's just a momentary loss of control.

Do me a favor? Open up Applications => Utilities folder. Make sure you have the following two icons there:

vansmith said:

You seem to be inserting unnecessary rants about Apple amidst your problems. There is no reason to do this as none of it is constructive. Let's sick to the problem at hand.

If your gear is new, cwa107's suggestion that there could be a source of interference sounds logical. Interference can be sporadic and does not necessarily have to disable everything completely. Something can work one moment and not the next. What do you have operating around your Mac?

Click to expand...

Sorry, but I'm not happy at all with the service I have received from apple, I'm very disappointed in fact.

As well as this problem I had to get the ODD, the fan and a new screen replaced under warranty, so in light of everything I feel that I have been sold a faulty machine.

It could be my mobile phone, but as I said before the fact that it comes back on when I do a simple disconnect and reconnect does suggest that the problem is not that, for if it was the problem would still be there when I reconnected. PLUS it usually takes some time before it start to do this, such as it has been on for a time. PLUS PLUS when I updated to 10.5.7 the problem appeared to go away for a good week or so, and I thought it had been solved, until one day it did it again..

Apple have been aware of this problem for some time, and they have brought out many updates, none of which have addressed the problem.

cwa107 said:

Do me a favor? Open up Applications => Utilities folder. Make sure you have the following two icons there:

Click to expand...

I have the Aluminium wireless keyboard firmware update, but no bluetooth firmware update. I have something called bluetooth file exchange and I also have Built-in keyboard firmware update, which I noticed was missing from your folder.

STU9000 said:

I have the Aluminium wireless keyboard firmware update, but no bluetooth firmware update. I have something called bluetooth file exchange and I also have Built-in keyboard firmware update, which I noticed was missing from your folder.

Click to expand...

OK, so you don't have the newest Bluetooth firmware update for your Mac itself. I supplied a link previously which will take you to the download for that update. Give it a try.

cwa107 said:

OK, so you don't have the newest Bluetooth firmware update for your Mac itself. I supplied a link previously which will take you to the download for that update. Give it a try.

Click to expand...

That is odd. Why wasn't I alerted to that from software update?

I'll get onto that, but not until tomorrow thanks..

My experience is that after 2 or 3 days use my Wireless MM can seem to get a bit sluggish, so i shut down and restart and all is back to normal. My first Wireless MM was a dud so i got a replacement. Then i bought a used one with stuck scroll ball and when the scroll ball gets gunked up on one and stops then i use the other while i go here to clean the gunked one, » Cleaning inside and dismantling the Apple Mighty Mouse: Shropshire, brought to you by LinkLink, the independent directory