did that

[Eagle00]

i have already done all that nothing seems to work. i can't getthe spikes out and calibrating does no good i've uninstalled and reinstalled my joystick like 6 times trying to fix it.

[Aurelius]

Eagle,
 Go into the game, does not matter if you go online or off. Choose setup, Joystick and then select joystick. Make sure that yours is highlighted in the middle. Click on set all inputs and set all buttons. When you move the rudders and joy stick the numbers on the right should change value. If they do then, click apply, ok and go into calibrate. Move them all in any way they can and try it out.

[Hawk52]

Eagle00.....would you by chance be running windows XP ?

Had same problem with XPPro and my sidewinder.
Would spike the Joystick and some of the buttons too.
Sorry to say, I could not find a fix. Had to go back to Win 98.