What Causes PS4 Controller Drift?
Before we move on to the causes of PS4 controller drift, you must precisely understand what controller/analog stick drift is. You must have often noticed during your gameplay that a character starts moving in circles or running abruptly while you do not even touch your controller.
The other times, you might have noticed that the PS4 controller is not in your hand, yet the camera keeps moving while you are in-game.
Here are the causes of PS4 controller drift:
1. Worn and Torn Controller
If you are a regular PS4 user, you can expect the usual wear and tear changes occurring in your PS4 console and its controller due to daily use. Mostly, you keep on using the controller without focusing on its health.
2. Dirty Analog Stick
As mentioned earlier, if you use your controller regularly, please make sure that you keep it clean. Else, as time passes by, dirt and dust accumulate and bother the analog sticks. A dirty analog stick is a significant reason why your PS4 controller drifts.
3. Damaged Controller
At times, you might not know, but some internal part of your PS4 controller gets damaged, but it keeps functioning until one day when you start experiencing controller drifting issues. In addition, there is a potentiometer in the PS4 controller, and if it gets damaged, it will also result in controller drift.
Also Read: How to fix HDMI port on ps4
How to Fix Drift on PS4 Controller?
We believe you would not want to stay in a situation where your PS4 controller keeps drifting and costs you important gameplays.
Here are the methods to fix PS4 controller drift:
1. Perform a Deep Cleaning On Your PS4 Controller
Cleaning your PS4 and its controller will fix many issues for you apart from the controller’s drift. You must clean your controller now and then to ensure that it remains appropriately functional for a long time. Let’s have a look at how you can clean your PS4 controller at home;
- Please make sure that you have turned off your console before moving on to cleaning up the controller.
- Next, you can take a regular blow-dryer and make sure that you switch it to cold settings not to blow out hot air, which would be harmful to the controller.
- Turn on the blow-dryer and rotate the analog stick in a circular motion to remove all the dust particles.
- In addition, you can use any tiny pointed object and move it around the joystick to get rid of the minute dust particles.
A lot of professional people also perform a deep cleaning of their PS4 controllers. However, if you are not very good at handling electronic objects, you must let this method go! The deep clean method of the PS4 controller requires opening up the entire PS4 controller, and if you are not good at it; you might damage something.
2. Perform Reset on Your PS4 Controller
As mentioned earlier, cleaning up your PS4 controller on and off will surely help you get rid of many console and controller issues. Similarly, most of the time, when nothing else works to resolve your PS4 controller drift issues, performing a reset on the controller is the only reliable option that can save you.
Let’s have a quick review on how to perform a reset on the PS4 controller;
- Start with turning on your PS4, navigate to ‘Settings’ using another functional controller.
- Next, click on ‘Devices,’ and then open the ‘Bluetooth devices.’
- Move on to looking for the inactive controller. To differentiate between the active and inactive controller, you must remember that the active controller always has a green dot.
- Once you have selected the inactive controller, please press the ‘options’ button on your PS4 controller.
- You will see different options on your screen, where you have to select ‘forget device.’
- Next, please turn off the PS4 as usual and connect the non-functional controller to the console using a USB cable.
- Finally, please turn on the console back and press and hold the PS button on the controller. Perform the log-in and check if the drifting issue has been resolved.
3. Replacement of Analog Sticks on PS4 Controller
Failure of the PS4 controller’s cleaning and resetting methods leaves you with either replacing the analog sticks or contacting Sony. Undoubtedly, both are hectic. Replacing analog sticks will cost you a lot since you will have to buy analog sticks and the sensor of sticks by yourself. In addition, the process also requires a soldering iron.
Overall, the process is time-consuming, hectic and also terminates the warranty of your PS4 controller. If you open up your PS4 controller and replace the analog sticks, please remember that you will not be able to claim the warranty!
4. Contact Sony for Repairing Of Your PS4 Controller
If your PS4 controller has its warranty period remaining, and you have been encountering the controller drift issue, then the best option for you is to contact Sony. They will surely entertain your case. Either you will get your PS4 controller repaired, or they will issue you a new one.
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Conclusion
Undoubtedly, it is a pretty much unpleasant scenario where you lose win-win gameplay owing to the mistakes made by your drifting PS4 controller. Please do not get upset over a petty issue! PS4 controller drifting problems are pretty common and, therefore, entirely fixable.
In this article, we have tried our best to provide you with simple fixes so that you do not have to face the PS4 controller drift issue any longer. Hopefully, it will prove helpful!
Sometimes we are not Cleaning up the Ps4 controller, but Cleaning can be a great and simple solution for fixing PS4 controller drift.