Erratic trackpad behaviour with high network load

[Soilage]

Hi guys,

First time Mac Mini owner here, and loving it. I have limited experience with Snow Leopard and now Lion, so bear with me...

When I copy a large file from my NAS (so it takes more than a few seconds), I experience stuttering/erratic movement when I use the trackpad. It's actually impossible to use for the duration of the file transfer.

Is this a Mac Mini, Lion or just a plain bluetooth issue? Is there anything to do about it?

As a bonus question, I have sometimes noticed when downloading large files, the temperature goes up to 90C - with no CPU activity at all.
Is this - again - normal behaviour?

Thanks!

edit: Failing to specify that I own a Mac Mini 2011; i7 2.7 with 8 gb and a Magic Trackpad

 

[The-Pro]

i know what you mean with the erratic trackpad behavior. Sometimes the curser goes nuts, stutters jumps across the screen (magic trackpad connected to MBP) I haunt noticed under what circumstances it does it though.

 

[Mr.C]

Sorry I can't help with your issue. I had a similar problem though with my Bluetooth Magic Mouse yesterday when downloading multiple files. The cursor started acting jerky and was hard to control. I've never had this problem before when I was using my old Mini with Snow Leopard. I'm not really sure what was causing the issue. Whilst not a major issue it was none the less annoying.

 

[Vermifuge]

I have an iTunes server and any time a music video comes up I see the same problem. I have the same setup that you have.

 

[indg]

are you using finder for the file transfer? snow leopard finder had similar issues while transferring files over the network, it would cause the mouse cursor to be jumpy/laggy. try restarting finder or using a third-party app like pathfinder. the problem comes and goes in lion, so it's hard to pinpoint what exactly causes this.

 

[Soilage]

Just did a bit more testing:

1. Installed 10.7.1 and used Finder to mount and copy

Same erratic behaviour as before.​

2. Using a webbased filebrowser on my NAS with both Chrome and Safari

This actually seems worse than using the finder.. I even managed to get a "Lost connection", followed by a "Connected" on the Trackpad.
​

3. Using Pathfinder as you (indg) suggested

It was there, but I had to "look harder" for it..​

I don't know if it's me seeing things, but when a transfer progressbar/window is foremost, the trackpad movement seems worse.

 

[japtor]

Are you guys seeing stuttering using wifi for your network connection? In my experience it can mess with Bluetooth connections while transferring stuff.

 

[Soilage]

I have wi-fi disabled and only using ethernet, so it's not affecting me in my case.

In the meantime I have searched around, and it's pretty easy to find a truckload of similar posts.
I find it safe to say, that's not a Mac Mini issue at all. Sounds unlikely that it's even Lion when people had the exact same problems in SL.