Re: Time maching and wireless mouse
- From: dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (David Empson)
- Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:06:55 +1300
Timothy Mathews <tsmohio@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
New--one week into it--to the Mac world, I have a Mini with my old Microsoft
Wireless Natural keyboard and mouse combo which worked flawlessly right
from the git go. A day or two into the Mac testing, I added the Time
Machine and now wonder about having it run continuously.
During occasional eratic keyboard and mouse activity, I realized it ONLY
happens while Time Machine is doing something (the icon is rotating) begging
the question: does anyone know if this is wireless in nature, Microsoft in
nature etc.?
Possible point of confusion: Time Machine is a feature of Mac OS X 10.5
for doing backups, to a hard drive directly connected to a computer, or
via a network to a suitable backup device. Time Machine has an icon
which appears in the menu bar, which rotates while you are doing a
backup.
Apple also sells a product called the Time Capsule, which is a wireless
base station and router with an internal hard drive. Its hard drive can
be used as a backup destination for Time Machine.
From reading your message, I assume you mean that you have a TimeCapsule, and are using Time Machine to do backups to the Time Capsule.
I also gather that you are using a wireless connection between the Mac
and the Time Capsule, so the Time Machine backups are using the wireless
network.
If you are getting erratic keyboard and mouse activity while the
computer is actively sending data wirelessly to the Time Capsule, then
it is likely to be a wireless interference problem.
The Time Capsule supports two different wireless network frequencies: 5
GHz (for 802.11n or 802.11a), and 2.4 GHz (for 802.11n, 802.11g or
802.11b). If you have the latest model Time Capsule, it can host
networks on both frequencies at the same time, while the original model
can be configured to operate on either one of the frequencies.
I don't know exactly which Microsoft keyboard and mouse you have, but
from a little research, it appears they generally operate using a small
receiver plugged into the USB port on the computer. I expect they are
operating on the 2.4 GHz frequency band, which is freely usable and
common for this type of device.
The most likely explanation of the problem is that both your Time
Capsule and the Microsoft keyboard and mouse are operating on 2.4 GHz,
and their radio signals are interfering with each other in such a way
that the keyboard and mouse are losing contact with the computer.
Other wireless keyboard/mice may be less likely to have problems with a
WiFi network. I haven't had any WiFi interference problems with three
Logitech wireless mice which run at 2.4 GHz.
In short, if I use a usb cable to directly connect the Time
Machine, might that solve the problem
You can't use USB to connect a Time Capsule to a Mac. You can do that
with an Ethernet cable, however.
If your Mac's Ethernet socket is being used to connect to your broadband
Internet, you will need to reconnect the broadband to the Time Capsule's
WAN port, and another Ethernet cable goes from one of the LAN ports on
the Time Capsule to your Mac. The Time Capsule may need configuration
changes to work properly with your Internet connection.
Using Ethernet instead of Airport to communicate with the Time Capsule
would probably solve the interference problem, as long as you disable
the wireless network in the Time Capsule configuration (and turn off
Airport on the Mac as well for good measure).
Another option would be to change the settings in the Time Capsule to
run the wireless network at 5 GHz instead of 2.4 GHz. This should
eliminate the conflict with the keyboard/mouse using the 2.4 GHz band.
(It also doesn't require changing your Internet connection.)
or is it more likely to be the Microsoft combo or wireless keyboard/mouse
in general? I have no problem buying the Mac keyboard/mouse but I'd sure
like to know if it's also a wireless related problem.
Replacing the keyboard and mouse is very likely to fix the problem. I'd
hope that any modern wireless keyboard and mouse would be designed to
coexist with a WiFi network running at 2.4 GHz, as they are so common
these days (but might not have been a few years ago, when Microsoft
released your keyboard/mouse).
Certainly Apple's USB or wireless keyboards and mice don't have this
problem (they use Bluetooth, which also operates at 2.4 GHz). You can
use other brands.
--
David Empson
dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
.
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