Arqade is a question and answer site for passionate videogamers on all platforms. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I just bought my first Xbox 360 controller for Windows. I play GTA 4 with this controller, when I move the stick to the left and I let go of the stick, the character keeps moving to the left, even though I have already let go of the stick.
I escape the game and open the controller to check and I find out that the axis doesn't go back to zero (or center) after I let go of the stick.
Is this a normal behavior for Xbox 360 controller or my controller is broken?
What you are experiencing is frequently referred to as stick drift. This is an issue just about every joystick, not just on the Xbox, suffers from at one point.
Since it's caused by frequent use and just generic wear and tear, it is not normal for your controller to suffer from it. Sure, new controllers will have a tiny bit of jiggle, but it shouldn't be as severe as in your case.
Consider bringing the controller back to the place you bought it from and swap it out for a new controller that doesn't have this defect.
This issue is called loose stick or drift stick. I don't think it's normal, who would design a drift stick. But I google for "xbox 360 loose drift stick" and I see a lot of people have this issue, so it maybe a common issue for Xbox 360 controller. I see that some games know this issue and program the dead zone for the stick, for example, I see the dev of game Bayonetta fix this issue for their game Bayonetta, so even though my controller has drift stick issue, the game Bayonetta just ignores the drift stick and works perfectly.
If the stick is loose enough that it registers movement when it is "at rest", you can work around the issue by increasing the dead zone. The dead zone describes how much you can move the stick from the center before it will be interpreted as movement. Usually this needs to be implemented by the game or application itself but it can also be applied by device drivers.
If you're using Steam, it has the ability to adjust dead zones for each stick and saves the settings for each controller you use.
My controller had also stick drift and stayed at about 80% of the maximum angle at the top or bottom. So increasing the deadzone was not an option. I ended up replacing the joystick module from the console's printed circuit board following this very good video tutorial:
They also explain how to open the console (you need a Torx-7 skrew driver). A new module costs about 2€ on ebay.
The biggest challenge might be to remove the defect module by desoldering. Soldering the new module is not too hard with some experience. Maybe ask a friend for help.
