Gamepad tester - buttons, sticks and stick drift

Stick drift is what most people are here for

Stick drift is to a controller what a double-clicking switch is to a mouse: the most common way it fails, and normally covered by warranty. A worn or contaminated potentiometer reports movement while the stick is untouched, so your character walks on its own or the camera creeps.

How this measures drift honestly

A stick at rest never reads exactly zero. A small offset is normal, and every game ignores it by applying a dead zone - typically around 10% of full travel. So a non-zero resting reading is not a fault by itself, and a tool that calls it one would send people back to a shop with a perfectly good controller.

Instead, this asks you to let go, samples for a second and a half, and reports the worst sustained offset as a percentage of full deflection. The dashed circle drawn on each stick is that typical dead zone, to scale - so you can see whether the resting dot falls inside it.

• Under 5% - normal. Every controller reads something.
• 5% to 12% - slight drift, still inside the dead zone most games apply, so it will be masked for now. Worth retesting in a few months.
• Over 12% - past the dead zone. This is what you feel in game, and it is what a warranty claim is for.

Testing the buttons

Press every button and check each one lights up. Two things are worth attention beyond simple on and off:

• Triggers show a percentage. A trigger that never reaches 100% has worn travel, and one that does not return to 0% is the analogue equivalent of drift.
• A button that stays lit after you release it is stuck - usually dirt rather than failure, and often fixable.

If your controller does not appear

Press a button first. Browsers deliberately report nothing for a connected but silent controller - it is a fingerprinting protection, not a fault. Almost every "gamepad tester not working" complaint is this.

If it still does not appear: check it is paired rather than merely charging over the cable, try a different USB port, and note that some browsers do not expose controllers over Bluetooth on every platform. A wired connection is the reliable way to test.

What to do about drift

1. Check the warranty. Drift is a recognised failure and is widely replaced. Opening the controller voids it, so do this first.
2. Clean it. Contamination causes a good share of drift. Compressed air around the stick base, or isopropyl alcohol worked in by rotating the stick, resolves it often enough to be worth trying.
3. Raise the dead zone. Many games and both major consoles let you widen it, which masks mild drift at the cost of some precision.
4. Replace the module. Out of warranty, stick modules are inexpensive and the repair is well documented. Hall-effect replacements use magnets rather than contacts and do not develop drift at all.

Privacy

Everything is read from your browser's gamepad interface and measured on your device. Nothing about your controller or your inputs is sent anywhere.