Rather than spending another $40-$60, I performed the following quick and free fix. (Free, provided you have electrical tape)
***Perform the following actions at your own risk. I am not responsible for any damage or injury while performing the actions below***
1. Remove the 5 screws from the back of the controller. Then carefully remove the back. Be careful not to disturb the four front trigger buttons (R1/R2/L1/L2). They are attached to springs, which are hard to get back on once removed. (Don't ask me how I know)
2. Once the back cover has been removed, carefully move the battery out of the way:
3. Remove the single screw attaching the board:
4. Carefully flip the board up and out to expose the ribbon cable below:
5. Over time, the use of the L3 button flattens the padding below the ribbon cable causing the eratic behavior. Lift the ribbon cable off the two posts to expose the black padding:
6. Place electrical tape over the padding to give it additional thickness:
That's it, 15 minutes of time and a bit of electrical tape. My sons have been playing without any issues ever since the fix was performed.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!!!! You have no idea how many of my (and my friends') controllers I've been able to use again. Thank you so much for this tutorial.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. I'm glad I was able to help.
DeleteYou saved my controllers as well. Thanks for sharing.
DeleteGlad to see it's still helping in the year 2020!
DeleteDoes this connection relate to the R3 as well? I am having a similar problem w/ the right stick.
ReplyDeleteHi Kaz, In my case it was the L3. Given the location of the ribbon cable and the L3 button, this makes sense. That said, this procedure only takes 15 minutes. May as well give it a go. If you do, let me know how things go. Thanks.
DeletePerfect super solution, was getting crazy playing FIFA and the players lived their own lives thanks to you i fixed my 2 controllers en saved myself 110 euros!
ReplyDeletewould this method also tight up the l3 and asumingly the r3 buttons to prevent accidental pressings?
ReplyDeletemeaning, i button bash in the heat of the moment in gun fights in COD and i would like to really want to push them to trigger the contacts.
my spelling and grammar errors aside
DeleteHi Bobby, The fix outlined above, would have no effect on the feel/effort of the L3 button. That would be part of the analog stick mechanism. I've never had to replace that component, but it looks to require a new analog stick, and soldering.
Deletethank you
DeleteOh this problem annoyed me several months! You sir, are a true hero! Thanks to you I don't have to buy a new one. :D
ReplyDeleteThank you very much! This fixed both of my controllers perfectly!
ReplyDeleteAwesome It worked great.
ReplyDeleteI don't have the random button press issues my controller works except. Just the other night I was playing basketball nba live and my triangle R1 and R2 button just suddenly stopped working. I have tried everything I took it apart and cleaned everything and it still don't work so I thought maybe it was the ribbon. So I put a tiny piece of tape under the ribbon in the middle in between where the buttons would be so it was not hitting the black strips on the ribbon still nothing. Do you think it could be a faulty ribbon it dont look damaged but I have no other explanation as to why every other button and the joy sticks work but this three buttons dont. Had this happened to anyone else. I would really like to play some ps3 and don't really have the money to buy a new one right now any suggestions would be apprecoated
ReplyDeleteIt seems your "board" is different from mine would it still work? I am having trouble with continued running in all of my COD games...
ReplyDeleteIt worked great the first time around but now I can only run part of the time on black OOS and I'm not sure if I messed up the l2 and r2 when repairing and I think I made the tape to thin. Would it hurt anything to do it over again?
ReplyDeleteI fixed two of mine controllers, one with the l3 problem, and one with random-self-pushing (arrows mostly) with the l3 problem together. They seem to work now correctly.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for this, i am very happy! Cheers!
It worked. No more buggy l3 and r3 Adding the electrical tape did the job. But I question why it did.
ReplyDeleteWith use, the stock black rectangular pad within the controller gets flattened. This creates a tiny "gap" which prevents the ribbon cable from properly seating. The added thickness provided by the electrical tape eliminates this "gap".
Deletethanks from 2019 (:
ReplyDeleteJust did it! Thanks from 2020!! Anyone having problems removing screws from an old, dirty controller, try putting a little drop of oil in the screw holes.
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome! Happy to help. Glad to hear that this post is still useful after all these years.
Deletei have the opposite issue here, my r3 clicks just fine but the action isnt recognized by the game. any possible fix without replacing?
ReplyDelete