Dualshock 2 - Left Analogue Stick Needs Recalibrated

[Red or Alive]

Noticed this when playing Silent Hill 4 (which contains first-person viewpoint sections): whenever I try to move straight ahead with the left analogue stick, my character moves very noticeable to the right at the same time (essentially walking in a circle if given enough space). I've tested multiple, official controllers and they all exhibit the same problem. In fact, the controller I bought, brand new, only a few days ago arrived today and shows the exact same problem. I popped Okami in and it too has poor Amaterasu running in a clockwise direction when I only want to travel straight ahead.

Has anyone encountered this before and, if so, do they have any possible solutions?

[Daragon]

Same problem with one of my pads, and on Okami as well!

There's no noticeable movement on menus or anything like that, just when I need to move the stick. I doubt the game is at fault, so chances are there's a build up of something that the stick is connecting with.

[Brad]

Clean the controller port. Possibly easier said than done of course.

[Daragon]

It will probably be the that the groove in the pad where the stick sits has become clogged slightly. Guess you could try and blow a can of air into it. Just make sure you get the cans of air which don't expell liquid and get so cold that it starts to frost over.

Stay away from the red ones in poundland for example.

[wakka]

He said it happens even on the brand new DS2 that he bought, so I guess it's something to do with the controller ports like FSW pointed out.

[Red or Alive]

Feh.

Does anyone know of a good, trustworthy repair service for slimline PS2s? Or any businesses based in the UK that sell both controller port blocks and the relevant ribbon?

[Brad]

You've tried cleaning the socket then?

[Red or Alive]

I haven't opened up the console, but I blasted the controller port with compressed air and then ran some cotton bus soaked in isopropyl alcohol along both sockets. The problem still persists.

It's strange, though, I would have thought that a problem with the controller port itself would manifest as the PS2 simply not recognising the controller. Instead, I have this very specific problem with the left analogue stick.

Thing is, I've only had the console for less than 3 years, and it's the last iteration of the hardware that Sony rolled out (SCPH-9003, with the power supply internalised) so I don't know if this is an issue specific to this model.

[randombs]

You'd need to poke the ports with a thin... thing. Maybe a pin or similar, but I expect you'd have the same effect by just plugging a controller in and letting its pins push away whatever could be in the port.

I'm assuming it happens for both ports, not just one?

Have you tried plugging a controller in while holding the analogue stick left a teeny bit? It should calibrate when the controller is first connected. It's not a solution, but you could probably try this in the meantime while waiting for a new port(or a working solution).

The other thing I'm thinking may be missing the point but bear with me:

An analogue stick is basically two potentiometers(or something like that. One in the left-right direction, the other in the up-down direction), right? I expect that holding the stick all the way right would give maximum voltage(around 5v) and all the way left would give minimum voltage(around 0v). Based on that, the voltage for a centred stick would be half(2.5v).

Suppose, for some reason or other, the controller isn't getting the proper voltage from the console but the chip inside the controller is expecting a range from 0 to 5v to decide how far(and in which direction) you're pushing the analogue stick. If the voltage to the controller was 4.5v, say, the analogue stick would read 4.5v maximum which would be interpreted as you pushing the stick to the right but not completely. Also, the centred stick would now read 2.25v and not 2.5v, which would be interpreted as you pushing the stick a little bit to the left.

Likewise, if there was 5.5v knocking around in the controller, the centred stick would read 2.75v(like pushing the stick a little bit to the right).

I expect I'm barking up the wrong tree but it got me thinking. If what I've written is similar to how it actually works, what about auto calibration? The controllers apparently calibrate the sticks when you plug them in(N64 controllers could be calibrated whenever by holding L+R+Start, I think) which means whatever voltage the sticks are giving out when first plugged in is interpreted as the centred value.

Still there?

Ok! The chip in the controller might be designed to work with varying voltages, in which case it would know it's receiving 5.5v and adjust accordingly. The console won't, though, because the controller encodes those voltages and sends data to the console to tell it what's going on.

I'm gonna stop now because I've lost myself, but I think what I'm wondering is whether cleaning the ports would help, seeing as it appears the console is receiving proper data(no lost inputs) and all the controller data goes through the same lines anyway(buttons, triggers, dpad, sticks).