USB 3.0 Dock does not work with Microsoft Touch Mouse

[sebbelcher]

Just paid £70 for a new Microsoft touch mouse only to find it does not work at all with the DisplayLink dock.

When the transceiver is plugged into either the USB 2 or USB 3 port directly into my X1 Carbon the mouse functions perfectly. However when it is plugged into ANY of the USB ports on the dock, the mouse becomes very jumpy and misses clicks and gestures. It is unworkable.

In case it helps, when using the mouse through the dock the lag and jumpyness is much more severe on the 'secondary' monitor than it is on the Primary.

Is this likely to be fixed? Or should I return the mouse?

[Dan]

Sounds like radio interference. Wireless mice use a radio frequency that is very sensitive to the radiation from USB 3.0.

If you want the gory details see here:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/io/universal-serial-bus/usb3-frequency-interference-paper.html

You may find the problem goes away if you use a USB 2.0 cable to connect the dock (so that the 5GHz PHYs aren't activated), but you may object to the loss in performance.

Another possibility is to use an extender cable for the mouse transceiver to remove it from the source of interference.

[sebbelcher]

I think you may have been correct. I was unaware of such interference.

I have solved this by plugging an USB extension cable into the dock so that I can place the mouse transceiver a good distance away from any active USB3 ports. When I do this, the mouse functions as expected.

Thanks for the inspiration!