Sticky D-Pad

[TTownEP]

Has anyone had problems with their D-Pad before? Mine likes to stick, not physically, but when I hold it down for a couple seconds, sometimes the characters in my games continue to travel to the left. It only happens going left. Happens on PS1 games and emulated games (makes Super Mario World infuriatingly difficult...) Any ideas? I have never dropped or injured this PSP as far as i know, but I suppose physical damage is a possibility.

This is a PSP-2001 GoW Red running on 5.00 m33 at the moment, although it was doing it on 4.01 m33-2 as well.

[Wally]

I'd get the console replaced if i were you.. While you still have some sort of warranty on it.

Alternatively, you can open the console and clean out the D-Pad section (probably the easiest way if you are technically minded)

Wally

[TTownEP]

Well if I send it in, should I put it on Official FW before I do?

[hacker94]

Well if I send it in, should I put it on Official FW before I do?
YES for the love of god put ofw back on

no reason for my strained words

but yes its probaly wise to put ofw back on

[Saracchini]

I'd get the console replaced if i were you.. While you still have some sort of warranty on it.

Alternatively, you can open the console and clean out the D-Pad section (probably the easiest way if you are technically minded)

Wally

If you have the console in the warranty send it to Sony.

I had already many L-R shoulders and D-stick stuck problems in my old Phat PSP. All that did was open my PSP (easy task, and i'm clunsy ! ),clean their contacts and everything worked fine again.

[TTownEP]

Ok, I opened it up;
1. Because I am impatient
and
2. Because I have no idea what the status of my warranty is. It's been about 6 months since I bought it.

So anyway, I cleaned the silver part directly underneath the buttons:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b329/gryanholland/STEP2r.png

but it seems to have had no effect. Should I disassemble it further, and get underneath this piece?

[mike_jmg]

Mine is a GOW psp too and it tends to stick into one direction some times (mine goes left or down), try doing circles with the analog stick, that solves the problem in mine, I have to do that almost everytime I turn it on, I think this is a bug caused somehow by custom firmware but I don't know for sure

I'm pretty sure is the analog stick and not the D-pad wich is causing you this problem as it only happens in games, Things like that used to happen to my PS2 controllers, rotating the stick kind of resets the thing back to normal

[TTownEP]

It doesn't do it when I am using the analog though. Only on the d-pad. But only in games, like you said. I've been playing FF VII and I changed the control scheme over to the analog for movement, and I have had no problems. It is annoying in menus though, it wants to move left or right when i am trying to move up and down sometimes if I don't push it STRAIGHT down. You still think it's analog related?

[mike_jmg]

don't really know but mine used to get crazy at the start menu of Starwars Force unleashed, just try rotating the analog when this happens and see if it stops, mine was fixed doing that. It is the same PSP model so I think it might work,

have you tried this?

[TTownEP]

Okay, I tried it last night, no change. Several full circles. Happened probably 5 times in about an hour. I did notice though, that sometimes it does it even when I don't push the button. I was standing still and Cloud just took off to the left. Another puzzling fact is that the controller settings have left and right on the d-pad as L1 and R1, yet the view doesn't change randomly as I run. It's almost as if it only messes up when it is in control of movement.

[mike_jmg]

This is really too weird, try to get it replaced or something, I think it is still under warranty
but yeah, but OFW back

[TTownEP]

Hm, I wonder how that will go since I opened it up... I do think that is the solution, but I don't know how cooperative Sony would be about it. The void sticker is almost pristine, I was very careful when I pulled it off, and I might be able to get it to look ok.