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mroseneo on 06 August 2008
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Barozi said:
mroseneo said:
I just took it upon myself and fixed the controller.

I took a knife, and cut out a few millimeters of the well around the D-pad. It took a few hours to do it carefully without screwing up the controller.

After that, I broke off some of my wife's nail file and sanded the inside of the well.

It looks pretty good, and works perfectly now.

lol could you upload a pic of you controller please ?

 

Here is a picture of my controller. You can't really see, but if you look right around the grey part of the d-pad. There is the white circle/well. Originally, the well is 27 mm on on the xbox 360 controller, while the Xbox s-controller was 29 mm. The s-controller was usually fine. The problem is that this small well causes the d-pad to hit that wall around it, which futher causes it to not make contact with the buttons underneath the shell. If you take a knife and cut around the inside of the shell, you should be able to make it bigger. You need a knife(preferable with a fairly straight blade face). You need to cut straight up and down, not at an angle, or it will look weird. This is not cutting, you need to very very finely slice, as if you were slicing a very thin slice of cheese. I guess it is more like grinding actually. Anyways, be very careful as you skim the inside of the circle. With your other hand, you should be holding the controller, and the D-pad in the opposite direction to give you room to cut. 

It took me about 2 hours to do this, because you need to take your time. If you look at the face ocasionally, you will be able to see the areas with the smaller gaps between the d-pad and well. My controller had the smallest gaps in the down and right directions. I focused more on these areas, and finished up so that it looked pretty even on all sides. When you think you have it pretty good, blow out the d-pad well with some good old breath. Turn on the xbox and mess around on the menu screen. Make sure that it is good before you finish up!. 

To finish up, steal a nail file off of your wife or girlfriend and cut it so that you have a very small stick. Cut a few of these, and using the same methods as before, hold the d-pad away from the nail file while you sand down the well ring. Sand the inside edge of the ring as well, so you remove any blemishes you may have caused. Blow it out pretty good, and finishes up with a damp tissue to get any particles that are left behind. 

And you have your perfect xbox controller.