Hori Pad Mini N64 Problem - Joystick leaning to one side

[scarper]

I've been taking pretty good care of it ever since I got it last summer. It has never been left laying face down, thrown against walls, or anything really. But it is now leaning to one side. The thing I'd be controlling moves slightly to the left whenever I leave it untouched.

How would I go about fixing this? I have a vaguely decent level of experience with fixing electronics.

[Hobie-wan]

Sounds like the spring in the analog stick has either shifted a bit or is a little bent so it isn't pushing all the way to center anymore. You may or may not be able to get to the spring depending on the hardware of the analog stick inside.

[scarper]

It suddenly started working properly again. Whelp. I dunno. Maybe it'll start having problems in the near future...

I'll take it apart sometime this week, and see if the spring is replaceable.

[harper]

I had this same problem with my one of N64 controllers (it has one of those "Gamecube style" joysticks). I went to take it apart to give it a look and while I was removing screws I dropped it on the floor and voila! Has worked great since.

[AppleQueso]

Is it actually visibly leaning physically to one side, or is it just something you're seeing in the game?

If you accidentally have the stick tilted for whatever reason when you boot up a game, it'll consider that position to be the 'center' until you reset it. I think you can reset it by pressing L+R+Z and Start at the same time.