Bluetooth and my Mac Pro 5,1

[Kaiman]

I solved the problem in a different way on my Mac Pro 3.1 Mac Pro by running an external bluetooth connection. I simply unplugged the internal Mac BT antenna wire and connected a purchased blue tooth wire to a hole I drilled in a PCI slot blank and hooked up a external blue tooth antenna. Both were available cheap on Amazon. It was much easier to do after I removed the BT Mac Pro card, attached the antenna wire and then reinstalled the card.

All bluetooth devices work like a charm now, especially my magic mouse which was the one having the biggest problem. Pointer is smooth as butter now No need for USB devices and drivers, even though it's an easier solution than diving into your Mac Pro.

 

[MacVidCards]

Using internal card is good idea.

Apple has made it pretty obvious that the next round of "Better upgrade, you don't have latest tech so latest features AREN'T GOING TO WORK IN YOUR "OLDER" MAC" be about BT and WiFi.

The cMP is ahead here as it can easily upgrade to run latest Mavericks geegaws while the more sealed variety will have trouble getting new parts in.

 

[flowrider]

My BT Saga continues.

1. The Kinivo Dongle that worked so well in Mavericks, absolutely refused to work in Yosemite. I could select it with BT explorer, but it refused to pair with my Microsoft mouse. That dongle has a Broadcom chip and was BT 3.0.

2. The Rocketek dongle that didn't work for me in 10.9.3, now works great in Mavericks, 10.9.4. But again, I could select it with BT Explorer, but it refused to pair with my mouse in Yosemite. This Dongle has a Cambridge Silicon Radio chip and was BT 4.0.

3. I then tried an IOGear dongle. This worked in both Mavericks and Yosemite, but to get it to work in Yosemite took me 4 restarts before I could get it to be recognized and pair with my mouse. This dongle also has a Broadcom chip and is BT 4.0.

4. This afternoon, I received a Prototype of a new product by MVC (MacVidCards). Another dongle. But, this one actually works GREAT. First off, it's big at 2.75" Long. And it's not a low power device, like the other dongles, so it wasn't recognized when I tried to run it from end of the remote cable I used for the other devices (due to interference) - But, the GREAT news is, it doesn't need to be remotely mounted to coexist with the Inateck USB card because the card does not does not cause interference when this dongle is mounted on the machine. But, the best news is, BT Explorer sees it as an Apple device and it is BT 4.0. It was recognized faster than any of the other BT dongles ever were, BT Explorer activated it quickly and it paired with my mouse very easily. When I changed startup disks and returned to Mavericks, I didn't need to do any pairing, The mouse was paired at the desktop screen. When I returned back to Yosemite, no issues. So again, this dongle is recognized as and acts like an apple device. It uses the Broadcom chip, I have it mounted on the rear of my Mac Pro in one of the three USB 2.0 ports.

Lou

 

[crjackson2134]

I'm glad MVC was able to provide you with a good solution. My MVC internal card is purring like a kitten. I'm sure glad we have MVC as an advocate for the cMP. I anticipate further upgrades from MVC for myself provided I don't kick the bucket soon.

 

[flowrider]

And now there's more

After a little bit of use with the MVC dongle mounted on the back of the case, it started showing signs of interference. Nothing really unworkable like the internal BT or the other dongles when mounted on the machine, but irritating. So, I got a 3 ft. USB cable to replace the 6 ft. cable that I had previously used, and the dongle works fine with the shorter cable. No interference and recognized by Bluetooth Explorer. So all is GOOD!!!!

Lou

 

[Angelus]

And now there's more

After a little bit of use with the MVC dongle mounted on the back of the case, it started showing signs of interference. Nothing really unworkable like the internal BT or the other dongles when mounted on the machine, but irritating. So, I got a 3 ft. USB cable to replace the 6 ft. cable that I had previously used, and the dongle works fine with the shorter cable. No interference and recognized by Bluetooth Explorer. So all is GOOD!!!!

Lou

Glad to hear it worked. I've been plagued by the internal Bluetooth too.
Up until today I had disabled the internal 2.0 and was using a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle attached to the USB port of my Apple Pro keyboard.
This morning I installed the Wifi AC/Bluetooth card that has been used in another thread to add Continuity/Handoff compatibility to the cMP.
Following the OP antenna arrangement resulted in the same poor Bluetooth signal despite me having replaced the Bluetooth antenna with one of these http://www.osxwifi.com/wireless-internal-antenna-for-bluetooth-macpro and attaching it to the front grill.

There was a post here https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/19389239/ outlining the use of a built in Wifi antenna for Bluetooth along with the addition of another antenna. I left the new antenna on the front grill using the same principle and have changed the order of the antenna connectors so now from top to bottom it reads 3,1,2,BT. (So now the Mac Pro detect Wifi using the antennae 3, 1 and the antenna on the front grill. Antenna 2 which is in the Mac Pro Wifi cluster is now being used for Bluetooth instead. I hope that makes sense)

Monitoring the connection quality using Hardware IO tools shows that it can range from 58% to 100% but being honest it largely sits at 80-95%. It only seems to drop to 58% transiently if I grip the mouse really hard. I cannot detect any lag and now have wake from sleep by using the Apple Mouse I'm a very happy camper.

I've attached some photos of the setup. You can see the antenna through the front grill but I don't care as it's an internal solution that seems to be working. The antenna was easy to thread into place and the only component I had to remove was the CPU tray so all in all the most difficult thing was connecting the antennae to the card.

 

[The Highlander]

Glad to hear it worked. I've been plagued by the internal Bluetooth too.
Up until today I had disabled the internal 2.0 and was using a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle attached to the USB port of my Apple Pro keyboard.
This morning I installed the Wifi AC/Bluetooth card that has been used in another thread to add Continuity/Handoff compatibility to the cMP.
Following the OP antenna arrangement resulted in the same poor Bluetooth signal despite me having replaced the Bluetooth antenna with one of these http://www.osxwifi.com/wireless-internal-antenna-for-bluetooth-macpro and attaching it to the front grill.

There was a post here https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/19389239/ outlining the use of a built in Wifi antenna for Bluetooth along with the addition of another antenna. I left the new antenna on the front grill using the same principle and have changed the order of the antenna connectors so now from top to bottom it reads 3,1,2,BT. (So now the Mac Pro detect Wifi using the antennae 3, 1 and the antenna on the front grill. Antenna 2 which is in the Mac Pro Wifi cluster is now being used for Bluetooth instead. I hope that makes sense)

Monitoring the connection quality using Hardware IO tools shows that it can range from 58% to 100% but being honest it largely sits at 80-95%. It only seems to drop to 58% transiently if I grip the mouse really hard. I cannot detect any lag and now have wake from sleep by using the Apple Mouse I'm a very happy camper.

I've attached some photos of the setup. You can see the antenna through the front grill but I don't care as it's an internal solution that seems to be working. The antenna was easy to thread into place and the only component I had to remove was the CPU tray so all in all the most difficult thing was connecting the antennae to the card.

Can you elaborate which card did you use to enable the handoff feature on your mac pro 5,1?

 

[flowrider]

And now I'm learning more:

Today I replaced the Inateck Kt-4004 PCIe USB 3.0 Card ($30.00) with a RocketU 1144C USB 3.0 Card ($109.00)

Just for the hell of it, I went back to onboard Bluetooth just to see what would happen. Well my Microsoft mouse paired and seemed to be working fine. I worked with it for about an hour, and every so often I would notice very small signs of interference, nothing that would make the mouse unusable as the Inateck did.

So, the RocketU Card seems to be better shielded than the Inateck Card. I guess you get what you pay for.

I have since returned to using the MVC dongle, there is absolutely no interference when using the dongle and the 3 ft. USB cable.

Lou

 

[Angelus]

Can you elaborate which card did you use to enable the handoff feature on your mac pro 5,1?

I bought it from OSXWIFI.com

 

[Dewdman42]

Glad to hear it worked. I've been plagued by the internal Bluetooth too.
Up until today I had disabled the internal 2.0 and was using a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle attached to the USB port of my Apple Pro keyboard.
This morning I installed the Wifi AC/Bluetooth card that has been used in another thread to add Continuity/Handoff compatibility to the cMP.
Following the OP antenna arrangement resulted in the same poor Bluetooth signal despite me having replaced the Bluetooth antenna with one of these http://www.osxwifi.com/wireless-internal-antenna-for-bluetooth-macpro and attaching it to the front grill.

There was a post here https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/19389239/ outlining the use of a built in Wifi antenna for Bluetooth along with the addition of another antenna. I left the new antenna on the front grill using the same principle and have changed the order of the antenna connectors so now from top to bottom it reads 3,1,2,BT. (So now the Mac Pro detect Wifi using the antennae 3, 1 and the antenna on the front grill. Antenna 2 which is in the Mac Pro Wifi cluster is now being used for Bluetooth instead. I hope that makes sense)

Monitoring the connection quality using Hardware IO tools shows that it can range from 58% to 100% but being honest it largely sits at 80-95%. It only seems to drop to 58% transiently if I grip the mouse really hard. I cannot detect any lag and now have wake from sleep by using the Apple Mouse I'm a very happy camper.

I've attached some photos of the setup. You can see the antenna through the front grill but I don't care as it's an internal solution that seems to be working. The antenna was easy to thread into place and the only component I had to remove was the CPU tray so all in all the most difficult thing was connecting the antennae to the card.

6 years later, still happy with this setup? I'm thinking about getting the bluetooth 4.2 board for my cMP, but all my PCI slots are used so its very difficult for me to install an external antenna. OSXWIFI keeps telling me that it doesn't work well without external antenna, so I'm kind of stuck trying to decide about it.

 

[Angelus]

6 years later, still happy with this setup? I'm thinking about getting the bluetooth 4.2 board for my cMP, but all my PCI slots are used so its very difficult for me to install an external antenna. OSXWIFI keeps telling me that it doesn't work well without external antenna, so I'm kind of stuck trying to decide about it.

yeah mate, it’s been great. I’m currently using Catalina via Opencore and my Bluetooth mouse has been flawless.

 

[Dewdman42]

Thanks for the followup. Just ordered it and will try your setup with the wifi antenna.