When a joystick dies.....

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Went to fire up P3d last night and had a lot of fun in my default aircraft, it started spinning violently as soon as I applied the throttle.  My eight year old joystick finally had it's last gasp, it was a Saitek controller.  I settled on a cheap and simple Thrustmaster controller and assigned my pitch trim to the two buttons on the controller.  It feels more natural flying in the sim with this controller, which I only paid $20.00 for.  Sorry to say it has no rudder control, so I have to use the keyboard for the rudder, which I find more realistic anyway.  I also calibrated the controller for Xplane11 and had much better control of my aircraft on takeoff.

John

[Jethro 65]

Sorry to say John, but unless your joystick had physical damage internally, such as a failing "pot" then it was more likely just recalibration that was needed (Because of MS Updates). Every so often Microsoft updates will do irreparable damage to the interaction and stability of devices. We can go from absolute stability at one time in an ageing devices lifespan with no apparent user issues or changes, then after MS updates we immediately notice the strange new interaction, sometimes the software update can completely remove our ability to overcome the issue or make impossible to remove the update without causing additional issues. Until a manufacturer has become aware of the new issue created by said update, and is prepared to continue support with updated drivers & software we are left with adjusting our mode of use, or searching for a workaround solution.

The longstanding tech solutions for this situation seems to follow the time honoured tradition of (update or perish), I try to look after my stuff, repair or maintain devices that continue to operate while ever the software support continues, but it seems MS are modernising software to suit a very small sub-group, who will never notice the negative impacts or have a need to interact with the types of devices we simmers like to connect and continue to use often past the allotted support lifespan.

For my use, depending on what I'm flying and the session time, I use a "Logitech Extreme3DPro" and/or a "LogitechForce3DPro", both of them have worked adequately at various times, where I rarely needed to recalibrate.  But the Force version needs Logitech drivers & Software v5.10 to drive the force parameters, the Extreme version will operate with Generic MS drivers. While the Generic driver remains unaffected by MS updates the same Joysticks will nolonger remain calibrated between FS sessions or PC restarts whenever Logitech software is the point of interaction. 
Neither Joystick will behave properly with Logitech Drivers until I have recalibrated every time I start the sim, (often the rudder controlled by the twist handle is off center causing the aircraft to rotate in circles if in slew mode, or limit turning the aircraft on taxi or while airborne. No matter what driver is in effect, recalibration will usually bring the undamaged device back into alignment with my original settings.  
I am ok with MS generic drivers for the Extreme Joystick, but not for the Force version, with the occasional recalibration find that after long times of stability MS updates will throw all stability into chaos once more (usually an update rollup containing various combined updates will cause the Jstick's to misbehave). This past few weeks since the last updates for my OS Win7/64/Pro once again chaos reigns, axis and parameters that were fine before are all either extreme left or right, aircraft wildly rotating when slewed, x-y axis are also affected but rarely the same thing twice. Re-cal and everything is fine until the next session.