Question
I've owned two USB gamepads for PC now. The first was some noname pad I got really cheap in a supermarket. The second was (and is) Logitech Rumblepad 2. In both cases I've had the same problem: When I first bought the gamepad I played with it and for a while all was well. Then I moved on to other games and the gamepad was put away in a drawer. After a year or two I came again upon a game which played better on the gamepad. But now the joysticks seem to have heavily deteriorated. They are wildly inaccurate and sometimes even jump around randomly without any action from myself. Calibration makes things a bit better, but it can do only so much to compensate, and the end result is still unsatisfactory.
Is this inevitable? Are gamepads supposed to be changed every two years? Or perhaps I should have stored them in some special way? Is there anything that can be done now perhaps?
Answer
It depends on the quality of the device, but some devices might detoriate over time, as the springs lose their strength.
However, most of the time, the cause of detoriation during storage can be traced back to improper storage for extended time.
When gamepads are stored, it is not uncommon to find the stored "upside-down" or below other stuff. In both cases, there is a continues force applied to the joystcks which strains the springs unequally.
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