This is not a help request post, but a tip post for those looking for solutions if their Bluetooth peripherals have lag that makes them unusable.
I have a classic Mac Pro with Open Core and a Fenvi WiFi card (flashed 5,1), and I'm trying to fix a myriad of issues, most of which seem to be known.
One of the issues was with my Bluetooth peripherals. I use the same Apple Magic Mouse and Logitech K760 solar keyboard (which can be paired to up to 3 devices and switched between them with buttons) for another Mac, and the one in question. The Magic Mouse seems to automatically become usable in whichever computer, as long as they're not on and reachable simultaneously.
The peripherals work perfectly on the non Open Core Mac, but with the Open Core Mac, they seemed to have significant lag that made them unusable: the mouse would sometimes be jittery or slow, and the keyboard especially seemed to send presses to the computer at a very slow rate, or it would hang as if a key had been permanently held down. So when you're browsing an internet feed and using space bar to jump down a notch, it would get stuck as if I'd just pressed space bar to get down indefinitely. Or, when typing, the characters would appear one by one at a very slow rate so I had to wait for ages, or, it would get stuck with a letter and just keep repeating an ever extending line of the same letter, or open the variation menu for a given letter (for example, if you long press e, it gives you a small menu that offers you variations such as é and è.)
Completely unusable.
I was occasionally trying to use Bluetooth dongles and it sometimes worked, sometimes not. It was not sustainable because it wasn't consistent, and it seemed like I often had to pair my keyboard or mouse again. It was also a bit unclear which devices the computer was using, and when. So this clearly just wasn't the real culprit.
One day, I accidentally found out the cause for the lag: it's a WiFi interference problem.
I have two routers, one of which receives the internet connection (let's call that router 1), and another one which is in bridging mode and receiving its internet connection from the other one (let's call that router 2).
I realised that if that Mac uses router 2 for WiFi, the peripherals become unusable. But immediately when I have it join router 1, these peripheral device issues go away! And this can be repeated over and over. I completely got rid of those Bluetooth issues by just not having that computer use router 2.
Router 2 (which causes issues) seems to be using channel 11.
Router 1 (which doesn't cause issues) uses channel 36, a much higher frequency.
My other computers don't have any issues with either one, and I'm not quite sure how exactly that issue is produced because the WiFi radiation is in this place all the time whether or not the computer has "shaken hands" and joined the network, but there you go.
Since both the Mac and router 2 are quite old, maybe the Fenvi WiFi card is so much newer technology that it wasn't built to expect some of those things.
I think it's a pretty good exclusion test, taken that my other Mac Pro with no Open Core nor Fenvi WiFi card doesn't have those issues.
I'm not sure if the other router would stop being an issue on the Open Core Mac too if I changed its WiFi channel, that's something that could be tested.
For a quick test on whether it's your WiFi, and if going to your router's admin panel to change the channel is a hassle right now, you can just turn off WiFi from the menu bar and see if the problem goes away. On a non-mobile computer, using an ethernet connection instead of WiFi gives you the best quality connection and bandwidth, so unless your computer and router are physically very far from each other, I would definitely use ethernet connection anyway because it's better, and not a subject to interference and signal loss the same way.
But if you must use WiFi, the channel change might be just the thing you need.
Anyway, hope this helps someone. If it does (or doesn't), please help others by sharing what setup you had, so they know is this might be for them.
I have a classic Mac Pro with Open Core and a Fenvi WiFi card (flashed 5,1), and I'm trying to fix a myriad of issues, most of which seem to be known.
One of the issues was with my Bluetooth peripherals. I use the same Apple Magic Mouse and Logitech K760 solar keyboard (which can be paired to up to 3 devices and switched between them with buttons) for another Mac, and the one in question. The Magic Mouse seems to automatically become usable in whichever computer, as long as they're not on and reachable simultaneously.
The peripherals work perfectly on the non Open Core Mac, but with the Open Core Mac, they seemed to have significant lag that made them unusable: the mouse would sometimes be jittery or slow, and the keyboard especially seemed to send presses to the computer at a very slow rate, or it would hang as if a key had been permanently held down. So when you're browsing an internet feed and using space bar to jump down a notch, it would get stuck as if I'd just pressed space bar to get down indefinitely. Or, when typing, the characters would appear one by one at a very slow rate so I had to wait for ages, or, it would get stuck with a letter and just keep repeating an ever extending line of the same letter, or open the variation menu for a given letter (for example, if you long press e, it gives you a small menu that offers you variations such as é and è.)
Completely unusable.
I was occasionally trying to use Bluetooth dongles and it sometimes worked, sometimes not. It was not sustainable because it wasn't consistent, and it seemed like I often had to pair my keyboard or mouse again. It was also a bit unclear which devices the computer was using, and when. So this clearly just wasn't the real culprit.
One day, I accidentally found out the cause for the lag: it's a WiFi interference problem.
I have two routers, one of which receives the internet connection (let's call that router 1), and another one which is in bridging mode and receiving its internet connection from the other one (let's call that router 2).
I realised that if that Mac uses router 2 for WiFi, the peripherals become unusable. But immediately when I have it join router 1, these peripheral device issues go away! And this can be repeated over and over. I completely got rid of those Bluetooth issues by just not having that computer use router 2.
Router 2 (which causes issues) seems to be using channel 11.
Router 1 (which doesn't cause issues) uses channel 36, a much higher frequency.
My other computers don't have any issues with either one, and I'm not quite sure how exactly that issue is produced because the WiFi radiation is in this place all the time whether or not the computer has "shaken hands" and joined the network, but there you go.
Since both the Mac and router 2 are quite old, maybe the Fenvi WiFi card is so much newer technology that it wasn't built to expect some of those things.
I think it's a pretty good exclusion test, taken that my other Mac Pro with no Open Core nor Fenvi WiFi card doesn't have those issues.
I'm not sure if the other router would stop being an issue on the Open Core Mac too if I changed its WiFi channel, that's something that could be tested.
For a quick test on whether it's your WiFi, and if going to your router's admin panel to change the channel is a hassle right now, you can just turn off WiFi from the menu bar and see if the problem goes away. On a non-mobile computer, using an ethernet connection instead of WiFi gives you the best quality connection and bandwidth, so unless your computer and router are physically very far from each other, I would definitely use ethernet connection anyway because it's better, and not a subject to interference and signal loss the same way.
But if you must use WiFi, the channel change might be just the thing you need.
Anyway, hope this helps someone. If it does (or doesn't), please help others by sharing what setup you had, so they know is this might be for them.
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