X52 Pro help, Yaw/Twist on flight stick activate Fire Group

[d8veh]

I tend to think that Saitek sticks have a self-perpetuating "myth" regarding wiring faults.
People find that the sticks do weird things, take them apart, break a wire in the process, see the broken wire, repair it (often badly), put it back together and assume they've located the problem and fixed it.
They do have some genuine wiring issues but they're usually fairly localised, mostly related to the throttles.

The reality is, unfortunately, that the USB controller in Saitek sticks can be a bit poopy and send spurious signals to your PC - and there's really not much you can do to fix it.

Just right-click on the X52 icon on your PC screen, look a little way down the list and you'll see "game controller settings".
Left-click that and a little "game controller" box will appear.
It'll have (IIRC) "X52 throttle" and "X52 stick" listed.
Left-click on "X52 stick" to highlight it and then left-click on "properties".

That'll open up Windows' own joystick test doodad.
Waggle the stick around and press all the buttons on your stick.

If you see anything odd happening MOST OF THE TIME - such as a hat-switch triggering every time you twist the stick - then you probably have got a wiring issue.
There's probably at least two damaged wires in the stick and they're touching each other when you twist the stick.
In that case, you need to get out the tools and fix it.

Far more likely, though, that you'll find nothing obviously wrong while using Windows' joystick test doodad.
In that case, I'm afraid, it's just that the USB controller inside your stick is randomly picking up certain signals from the inputs on your HOTAS (throttle position, twist-grip, pitch, roll etc) and wrongly interpreting them as an input from whatever control operates your fire-group selector.
Basically, every so often the USB controller is thinking "Oh, wait, was that a hat-switch input? I'd better send that signal to the PC!!!"

I'm told that disabling any lighting on your Saitek HOTAS (via the Saitek software) can help with this by reducing the stick's power consumption and reducing the load on the USB controller.
Not entirely sure I believe this, though.
I've turned off the lighting on my X56 and it still generates spurious signals every so often.

Thing is, it's not a software issue, so Logitech developing new drivers/software isn't going to help.
It's the firmware inside the USB controller which is a bit halfassed and, AFAIK, that can't be updated.

If anything, including the control board, in the X52, causes a spurious signal, it has to go through the PC's USB port. The Windows test program that you mentioned monitors that port. Any signal that comes through the port would result in the test program showing it. I can't see any way that a spurious output from the X52 could be missed by the test program, but still picked up by the game - the same with any other test software. In other words, it the test program shows that a button or axis is not working properly, you have to fix something in your X52. If the test program shows that the X52 is working properly, you have to look anywhere but the X52 to solve any problems.

One thing that has been proved to happen is that ED wrongly interprets or misses inputs that are recognised by the test programs. That is only on the throttle AFAICR. The problem is definitely within ED, as you can affect which buttons work when you do the keybindings.

To OP: One thing I can think of that might work. Try making a new set of custom bindings from scratch. Please let us know if it works.

 

[Stealthie]

If anything, including the control board, in the X52, causes a spurious signal, it has to go through the PC's USB port. The Windows test program that you mentioned monitors that port. Any signal that comes through the port would result in the test program showing it.

That's correct.

Point is simply that the Windows joystick doodad is the easiest way to see what your stick is doing and it's a native Windows program so it bypasses any likelihood that software is adding it's own oddness.

Open the windows joystick app, waggle the stick around and look for spurious inputs.
If you're REGULARLY getting them - in the couple of minutes that you're playing with the Windows app - chances are that it IS a wiring fault... or some other permanent fault.
If you don't see anything odd in the time you're playing with the Windows app' it's likely there's nothing damaged inside the stick.

Course, if you were to play with the Windows app for a couple of hours then you might see a spurious input resulting from a dodgy USB controller but the chances of it happening - and especially happening more than once - in the couple of minutes you'll be using it to verify that all your stick inputs are working properly is negligible.

The problems with the Saitek USB controller manifest themselves fairly rarely, and not repeatably either.
You'll be engaged in a dogfight (waggling your stick around a lot and pressing a bunch of buttons too) and you'll suddenly realise that your landing gear is deployed, your cargo scoop is deployed, your NV has activated... or you switch fire-groups.

In summary:-

• If you can cause the fault reliably in the Windows joystick app' it's probably a hardware fault.
• If there's no fault in the Windows app but you can reliably cause the fault in ED, it's probably a keybinding issue.
• If there's no fault in the Windows app and the fault only occurs occasionally in ED, it's probably a USB controller issue.

Taking this a bit further, it might be interesting if there was some kind of joystick monitoring app' that recorded raw telemetry from the stick so that you could play ED (other games are available) for a couple of hours, note the times any faults occured and then look at the telemetry file to see if there was a common cause.

Also, on a more practical level, if lack of power to the USB controller in Saitek stick IS responsible for it's odd behaviour, I suppose it might be possible to solve this by modifying the stick to work with an external power supply - or, less drastically, attaching it to a powered USB hub.

TBH, though, given that these faults (the ones caused by the dodgy USB controller) happen so infrequently, I suspect most owners just put up with them.

 

[Jack Schitt]

The X52s are definitely quirky, but I wouldn't change my X52Pro for the world.

In the years I've had mine I've seen all of the above except for the truly random USB controller signals Stealthie mentions, which is perhaps just as well because the one time I tried the most commonly suggested X52 panacea -- a powered USB hub -- it all went very badly and Windows could see nothing but a set of Unknown Devices until I moved it back to a built-in USB port.

Back in 2014, when the X52 was acting particularly quirkily and kept disconnecting and reconnecting, I read that there can be incompatibilities between certain chipsets in peripherals and certain USB chipsets on motherboards or USB controller cards. So I trawled gaming forums to find someone whose X52 was working perfectly, found the type of chipset in their controller, bought a PCI-E USB card with the same chipset, and used that for the X52 rather than the motherboard ports. I've not seen any Windows-related USB intermittencies in all the years since. This may be a massive coincidence but I'm reluctant to change anything just in case.

FWIW I just checked and that card is still available from Amazon UK and possibly other places. The price has crept up a bit over the years and it's older technology (USB 3.0*) but I thought I'd mention it for the sake of completeness. I can't actually recommend it, because I'm not even sure it's what cured my joystick's intermittency, but I'll leave it here in case someone gets desperate and wants a punt.

*I've also read many anecdotes suggesting that legacy peripherals like the X52 should be
used exclusively in USB2.x ports because they can have problems with USB 3.x. I never saw
any direct evidence of this and I suspect any differences people were seeing were probably down
to specific incompatibilities with the then-new USB 3.x chipsets. But again, caveat emptor.​

The only other thing I've not seen mentioned yet in this thread is the generally poor quality of the PS/2 ports on the joystick and throttle. Between excessive flexion, dry joints and poor pin mating I started to see all sorts of intermittent issues with the connection between the two when the HOTAS was a couple of years old. I now use a good quality third-party PS/2 cable, spray the connectors with switch cleaner once in a while, and whenever I move the stick or throttle around on the desk I give the connectors a bit of a re-seat. Not had an issue since.

This probably won't help with the OP's problem, which sounds quite specific and repeatable, but it's good practice to minimise the potential known issues when you're looking for the unknowns.

 

[CMDR Saigon]

Thank you CMDR Steathie, CMDR d8veh, CMDR Brother Sabathius, CMDR Jack Schitt! Much appreciated!

What I have done is to move the X52 to it's own USB controller (problem persists but diminished), I then also turn binding for "Fire: Deploy Weapons" to "Off" and both these actions seem to have significantly diminished the issue whilst in combat but still occasional. I am monitoring but it seems to still happen whilst manual docking as I make finer ship movements to land...

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[Stealthie]

Thank you CMDR Steathie, CMDR d8veh, CMDR Brother Sabathius, CMDR Jack Schitt! Much appreciated!

What I have done is to move the X52 to it's own USB controller (problem persists but diminished), I then also turn binding for "Fire: Deploy Weapons" to "Off" and both these actions seem to have significantly diminished the issue whilst in combat but still occasional. I am monitoring but it seems to still happen whilst manual docking as I make finer ship movements to land...

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One "workaround" that might be worth considering is simply to move a function to a different joystick input.

For example, one of the things my X56 does/did, intermittently, is to select a different target.
That was kind of awkward cos I'd target a baddie, start shooting at them, my X56 would select a different target, I'd shoot at that and end-up with a bounty.

I had the "previous/next target" controls on hat-switch 1 and, apparently, my X56 would generate a spurious "hat-swith 1 up" input... which'd target the next ship.
As a workaround, I swapped the targetting controls to hat-switch 2 and that problem went away.
I now have my power-management controls on hat-switch 1 and every so often they'll change slightly but that's not such a big deal and doesn't get me bounties.

Maybe you could try something similar, by swapping your fire-group controls to different joystick buttons?
That way, even if your joystick is generating spurious "hat switch 1 left" (or whatever) inputs, it won't actually do anything.


Saitek/Logitech X-series joysticks are decent enough but they are, unfortunately, fundamentally flawed in several ways.
Unless you're okay with spending a heap of cash on a high-end stick, you just learn to live with it.

 

[Ski'Thor]

Greetings,

I had similar problems and the following helped me a lot with "ghost inputs"

1. Set down the LED brightness to 50% instead of 100%
2. Use a powered (!!) USB 2.0 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) HUB.

This combination solved all my X52 Problems

 

[Caydran]

OP, here are some USB tools to help you see what is going on.

DiView.exe: This tool will show you all of the axis's for the X52/55/56 and allow you to calibrate if needed. At the bottom of the page, download DiView.zip

USBDeview v3.02: This utility will show you all of the USB devices on your system. If you delete all of the "greyed-out" USB connections (which are from disconnected USB devices) and leave all of the "Green" and "Purple" ones (which are active), it will remove all unwanted/not needed USB devices.

USB View: This is a Windows/Microsoft USB Viewer which will show you your current USB connections for Windows. It will help you find an empty USB Hub for which you can connect your X52 and see information about the USB Hub and information about the USB device connected. Follow the instructions on the website to install it. You need to install the Windows SDK for it to work.

With these tools, you should be able to determine what is going on.

Hope this helps.

Fly safe.

 

[CMDR Saigon]

One "workaround" that might be worth considering is simply to move a function to a different joystick input.

For example, one of the things my X56 does/did, intermittently, is to select a different target.
That was kind of awkward cos I'd target a baddie, start shooting at them, my X56 would select a different target, I'd shoot at that and end-up with a bounty.

I had the "previous/next target" controls on hat-switch 1 and, apparently, my X56 would generate a spurious "hat-swith 1 up" input... which'd target the next ship.
As a workaround, I swapped the targetting controls to hat-switch 2 and that problem went away.
I now have my power-management controls on hat-switch 1 and every so often they'll change slightly but that's not such a big deal and doesn't get me bounties.

Maybe you could try something similar, by swapping your fire-group controls to different joystick buttons?
That way, even if your joystick is generating spurious "hat switch 1 left" (or whatever) inputs, it won't actually do anything.


Saitek/Logitech X-series joysticks are decent enough but they are, unfortunately, fundamentally flawed in several ways.
Unless you're okay with spending a heap of cash on a high-end stick, you just learn to live with it.

Thank you CMDR, I'll mess around with it and see!

 

[CMDR Saigon]

Greetings,

I had similar problems and the following helped me a lot with "ghost inputs"

1. Set down the LED brightness to 50% instead of 100%
2. Use a powered (!!) USB 2.0 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) HUB.

This combination solved all my X52 Problems

Thank you CMDR! I have set LED down to about 25% (and prefer in the dark tbh) and last night had zero issue in combat, however, this morning it came back intermittently but way less than before. I have ordered a power USB and will try that later.

 

[CMDR Saigon]

OP, here are some USB tools to help you see what is going on.

DiView.exe: This tool will show you all of the axis's for the X52/55/56 and allow you to calibrate if needed. At the bottom of the page, download DiView.zip

USBDeview v3.02: This utility will show you all of the USB devices on your system. If you delete all of the "greyed-out" USB connections (which are from disconnected USB devices) and leave all of the "Green" and "Purple" ones (which are active), it will remove all unwanted/not needed USB devices.

USB View: This is a Windows/Microsoft USB Viewer which will show you your current USB connections for Windows. It will help you find an empty USB Hub for which you can connect your X52 and see information about the USB Hub and information about the USB device connected. Follow the instructions on the website to install it. You need to install the Windows SDK for it to work.

With these tools, you should be able to determine what is going on.

Hope this helps.

Fly safe.

Thank you CMDR. I'll take a look at these!