Serious problem with MS sidewinder......

[Swoop]

I've given up with MS support staff.....they're completely useless.  You ring in with a joystick problem, you spend a 3/4 hour holding only to finally end up speaking to some spotty 17 year old who wants you to create a startup disk for no apparent reason.

Here's the problem:  MS Sidewinder Precision Pro.  PC is AMD K6-2 350Mhz, 64Mb RAM, Viper 550 TNT2 16Mb Graphics card, SB AWE64, blah blah blah.

While in flight.....the stick recalibrates itself without warning.  What I mean is, the stick will sometimes decide that the new stick centre position is wherever the stick happens to be at that moment.  IE, if I'm pulling 4Gs and the stick recalibrates I'm suddenly pulling zero Gs and have to hold the stick in that position to maintain level flight.

This happens in all flight sims, not just Aces High.  There is no specific time frame, sometimes I can go a whole evening without the problem, other times it'll happen 5 times a night.  The problem occurs the same no matter what port the stick is connected to (game port thru soundcard or USB port).  I have the latest drivers.  Problem is the same with both Win 98 and Win ME.

If I recalibrate in Aces High setup I can reset the sticks centre position, however, the sticks range of movement is then limited.  What I mean is if the stick calibrated itself to have a centre position waaaay off to the left, once recalibrated I cant turn left.

Once it happens if I check the sticks properties in windows control panel it will show me that the centre position is off, but recalibrating from this screen makes no difference.  The only thing I have found to cure this is to reboot.  And again.  And again.


HELP!


8 out of 10 times when I get shot down it's cos my stick has recalibrated in mid dog fight.  :-(

Swoop

[bloom25]

First of all, why don't you make a startup disk and then...    J/K.

Now seriously:

What version of DirectX do you have?  (7.0a is the best so far IMO.)

What motherboard do you have?  If it has a VIA chipset, possibly updating the USB driver will help things.  Also check for BIOS upgrades that say they correct USB issues for your motherboard.

Do you have the Sidewinder 3.02 driver, or the older 3.0?

You *may* have a defective/dying joystick.


------------------
bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[Swoop]

Bloom,

ta for the reply.

I've tried all vers of DX from v6 upwards, the problem is the same with all.

I dont think it's a USB port issue as the problem is exactly the same with the stick plugged into the game port on the soundcard.

Yep I have the 3.02 driver.

Yeah, I may have a naff stick.  Got a mate with the same one.....he's gonna lend me it once he buys his new FF stick......

Swoop

[SKurj]

Hmmm what chipset does your Mobo use?

I use SW prec Pro , and have used it USB and thru the gameport on my awe64 with no problems whatsoever, ever +)
My sys
Celeron 266 @ 448 on an Abit bh-6
128mb ram
w98 (non se)
awe64
v3 3000 agp
Dx7a

Sounds like a hardware issue and my first guess would be mobo chipset....

AKSKurj

[Swoop]

:-)  Um.....I dont know.  Bought the PC cheap, and I mean real cheap, so I didnt argue about specs when the salesman told me £200.  


Anyway, due to problems with the minimum spec of various games lately (notably B17-II) I'm looking at upgrading to:

AMD Thunderbird 900Mhz, 128Mb RAM (133), 20Gb HDD, 32Mb GeForce 2 card, SB Live and a bugger rubber band to run it all.
(£800 from Mycom.nl)

If the problem still exists with a new PC then it'll be time to upgrade to an FF stick........

Until then, if ya see a Spit/Tiff/B26/Lanc/N1k/Yak barrel rolling uncontrollably through the sky....dont shoot, I'm recalibrating again.  

Swoop

[straffo]

Got the same problem with my Sidewinder this summer I've spend a lot of time reconfiguring it tweaking AH changing Mobo /sound card ...(I've a lot of opportunities to make change here at work  )

And the result is : after 4 year my sidewinder is DOWN !

Got an Saitek X36 USB : great stick can be programmed easily,great precision ,great ergonomie (if you have larges hands like me  )

[sourkraut]

It sounds like you have an intermittent wire fault. The Sidewinder SW auto-calibrates the joystick center position to the first position detected. If you have a loose/broken wire which disconnects/connects all the time this is what would happen (kinda of like a crappy headphone connection).

You can get the same effect by pushing the joystick to one side during boot up of your system. The center position will be offset.

Sour

[bod]

Got the same problem with AH and sidewinder. No problem with other sims (WB)

[bod]

Seems to be a software related bug. Works just fine with Windows 2000. Serious problems with Win98.

[bod]

hhmm. It looks like you just have to deactivate any active "profiles".

[This message has been edited by bod (edited 12-02-2000).]