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Resolved Mac Pro 09/10 Weak Bluetooth

feins

feins

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 11, 2010
93
1
Malaysia
To most who use Mac Pro 09/10 may find there is an issue working with Bluetooth devices as there is an design issue with the Bluetooth antenna which was hiding behind the aluminum and absorb the bluetooth signal.

I've been searching around and finally decide to share the experience and mod which to solve by using an external antenna.:)

Below are the parts for the mod and the final result was super no more jerky or mouse disconnect and smooth mouse experience.:D
 

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And the end result are replacing the existing bluetooth antenna as the picture describe and the final result.:D
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cutterman said:
Very nice mod.

Where did you get the parts?
Click to expand...

I got the U.FL to RP-SMA Female Pigtail from Ebay at a very nice deal USD3.99 for 2 pcs include of postage.

The 2.4G antenna are from my faulty old Dlink wifi router and the back plate are from my old silverstone fan controller so its a very cheap mod with fantastic result. Time take is less than 10min to have everything done :D
 
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Wouldn't the thread below have worked also or is it a completely different problem ?

https://forums.macrumors.com/wap/GetThread.php?t=392692
 
initialsBB said:
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Wouldn't the thread below have worked also or is it a completely different problem ?

https://forums.macrumors.com/wap/GetThread.php?t=392692
Click to expand...

That solution r for Mac pro 08 and below. 09/10 model had a different Bluetooth design. This solution are for Mac Pro 09 onward.
 
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OK, thank you for clarifying that for me.
 
Cynicalone said:
I did basically the same thing to my 09 Model a few months ago it has worked perfectly since then.
Click to expand...

Yea to retain the wake from Bluetooth on the magic mouse and to save a USB port from Bluetooth donger this is the best solution. :)
 
Great mod; I wish I had an available PCI-e slot to do this since my Magic Mouse, at times, can be just about unusable.
 
feins said:
Yea to retain the wake from Bluetooth on the magic mouse and to save a USB port from Bluetooth donger this is the best solution. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing. Personally, I disconnected the internal Bluetooth antenna to use a USB dongle (I plugged out the tiny cable that is visible on your photo) I wake from sleep by dis- and reconnecting the dongle. It takes a few seconds, but it works...
 
VirtualRain said:
Nice work... I like it.

This is what I did some time ago...
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/8931276/

It's not nearly as clean as this solution. I may try to procure these parts and update my solution to match yours.

It may be tough finding the external antenna, I'm guessing since I don't have a dead DLINK router to steal one from.
Click to expand...

Any 2.4Ghz antenna will do. :) if u get an higher gain antenna u can use ur bluetooth device from another room :p
 
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feins:
Nice clean solution but it does of course tie up a slot. What did you use for that slot plate? It looks like it has pre-cut punch-out holes.

you39 said:
Thanks for sharing. Personally, I disconnected the internal Bluetooth antenna to use a USB dongle (I plugged out the tiny cable that is visible on your photo) I wake from sleep by dis- and reconnecting the dongle. It takes a few seconds, but it works...
Click to expand...
FWIW, I also use a dongle. You don't need to disconnect the internal BT antenna to use it (on my late 2010 Mac Pro at least) since the dongle takes precedence. And all I do to wake my machine up is hit a key on my keyboard.

VirtualRain said:
This is what I did some time ago...
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/8931276/

It's not nearly as clean as this solution.
Click to expand...
While yours is not as "clean" as feins' I am wondering why you strung your antenna wire where you did as opposed to going out through one of the many holes in the "cheese grader"? That way the slot is available.
 
xyzzy-xyzzy said:
feins:
Nice clean solution but it does of course tie up a slot. What did you use for that slot plate? It looks like it has pre-cut punch-out holes.
Click to expand...

Yes its from my Silverstone Fan controller back plate which was precut with 3 holes and its just nicely fit. If you dont have one of this you can just drill a hole on any backplate no worry still serve the purpose.

FWIW, I also use a dongle. You don't need to disconnect the internal BT antenna to use it (on my late 2010 Mac Pro at least) since the dongle takes precedence. And all I do to wake my machine up is hit a key on my keyboard.
Click to expand...

Yes it will do even with a USB dongle but not all happen to be lucky as you as i encounter there are issue with some, after wakeup the Magic Mouse wont respond or you wont be able to wake ur Mac up with the bluetooth keyboard. So the safest mod is still using back its existing bluetooth module by replacing its original antenna which suck. Im not sure why apple still dont solve this issue with its Mac Pro 10 model if do i will just buy the Mac Pro 10 model antenna to replace mine to save a pci-e slot :rolleyes:
 
xyzzy-xyzzy said:
FWIW, I also use a dongle. You don't need to disconnect the internal BT antenna to use it (on my late 2010 Mac Pro at least) since the dongle takes precedence. And all I do to wake my machine up is hit a key on my keyboard.
Click to expand...

Which exact dongle do you use?

On my 2009 the dongle I use does not reliably work without disconnecting the internal antenna. I've been searching the web a while ago, and this appeared to be the general experience with various dongles, including the D-Link Apple sold in the Apple Store. Did Apple finally change something on the 2010 to prevent this?
 
you39 said:
Which exact dongle do you use?

On my 2009 the dongle I use does not reliably work without disconnecting the internal antenna. I've been searching the web a while ago, and this appeared to be the general experience with various dongles, including the D-Link Apple sold in the Apple Store. Did Apple finally change something on the 2010 to prevent this?
Click to expand...

Im also not too sure which dongle did he use as what i come across most dongle doesn't support wakeup even i did use a logitech one which mention support for Mac also dont work at the end i sold that mouse away and go for this solution.
 
feins said:
Yes it will do even with a USB dongle but not all happen to be lucky as you as i encounter there are issue with some, after wakeup the Magic Mouse wont respond or you wont be able to wake ur Mac up with the bluetooth keyboard.
Click to expand...
Well let me clearify my previous remarks a little. First I have a USB keyboard directly connected to my machine which is why I can wake the machine up by hitting a key. And also, maybe 15%-25% of the time it is indeed true that my MM won't respond after waking up either. In those cases I need to flip the switch on the MM (or press the button on the trackpad a few times) to "get the dongle's attention" (so to speak), or as I like to think of it as saying "over here stupid" :D

you39 said:
Which exact dongle do you use?
Click to expand...
I use a IOGear Bluetooth 2.1 USB Micro Adapter GBU421. I only got that particular one because they were on sale for $8 at Fry's last Christmas. I keep it plugged into the back of my ACD which means it's less than a foot or two from the mouse and trackpad.

feins said:
Im also not too sure which dongle did he use as what i come across most dongle doesn't support wakeup even i did use a logitech one which mention support for Mac also dont work at the end i sold that mouse away and go for this solution.
Click to expand...
I knew when I decided to use a USB dongle that the any BT device like the mouse wasn't going to be able to wake up the machine since the power is off the dongle while the machine sleeps.

you39 said:
On my 2009 the dongle I use does not reliably work without disconnecting the internal antenna. I've been searching the web a while ago, and this appeared to be the general experience with various dongles, including the D-Link Apple sold in the Apple Store. Did Apple finally change something on the 2010 to prevent this?
Click to expand...
Well I did qualify my remark by saying the dongle takes precedence on at least my late 2010 Mac Pro:) But are you 100% sure about having to disconnect the antenna on the earlier models? I originally discovered that the dongle was taking precedence while I was playing around with Bluetooth Explorer because I was initiialy concerned who was going to receive the BT signal -- dongle or built-in. I think it was the "HCI Controller Selector" which shows the "Host Controller Selector" window. No other choice is given except the dongle when the dongle is plugged in.

Maybe on the earlier models there is a choice so perhaps you could select the dongle from there as an alternative to disconnecting the antenna (just thinking out loud here).
 
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Bluetooth problem

Hello,

Have a 2010 6-core Mac Pro.. Although I have not experienced any such problems mentioned in this thread, how do I know if I have this problem? My bluetooth connects flawlessly and with no problems.
 
Then I guess you have no problems :D

If you have such things like intermittent, jerky, or lagged mouse response (any of these in any combination) then you would probably have noticed some of these BT problems.

This also applies to the trackpad too. I don't have a BT keyboard so can't comment on how it would behave (miss a keystroke here and there I assume).

I have to also assume you have your BT stuff "close enough" to the back of your machine with little or no obstacles to interfere between there and your BT device(s).
 
xyzzy-xyzzy said:
While yours is not as "clean" as feins' I am wondering why you strung your antenna wire where you did as opposed to going out through one of the many holes in the "cheese grader"? That way the slot is available.
Click to expand...

Neither end of the antenna would fit through the cheese grater holes. The only exit that worked, was through a slot. The slot is still usable though. At any rate, this is a far superior solution and I will be switching to this as I don't need all my slots anyway.

EDIT: It appears the same EBAY seller of the pigtail cable, also sells a suitable 2.4GHz antenna
 
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xyzzy-xyzzy said:
Well I did qualify my remark by saying the dongle takes precedence on at least my late 2010 Mac Pro:) But are you 100% sure about having to disconnect the antenna on the earlier models? I originally discovered that the dongle was taking precedence while I was playing around with Bluetooth Explorer because I was initiialy concerned who was going to receive the BT signal -- dongle or built-in. I think it was the "HCI Controller Selector" which shows the "Host Controller Selector" window. No other choice is given except the dongle when the dongle is plugged in.
.
Click to expand...

Don't quite remember exactly, really. Will have a look into that again. So your dongle only took precedence after you took care of that with the Bluetooth explorer or using the bluetooth explorer you noticed it takes precedence by default?

Here's a guide to the plug-out procedure that I had bookmarked:
http://oliverwolfson.com/apple-mac-pro-bluetooth-issue-solved/
 
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