Left Thumbstick Feels Gritty?

[Voidcake]

My left thumbstick has this strange gritty feel when it's pushed upwards. I've cleaned it from the outside a few times, haven't opened it up yet to check inside.

Right thumbstick has no issues. Anyone else experience this?

[minas6907]

Hmmm that's interesting. I noticed the same thing actually. Alot of what I play on the deck are side scrollers, so I often just use the dpad. But a while back I was playing Fall Guys, and I actually did notice that the left analog had a weird feeling to it when held all the way up, gritty is a good word to describe it. I didn't notice anything with the right thumb stick. I don't have a solution, but reading your post brought this to mind.

[Voidcake]

Originally posted by minas6907:

Hmmm that's interesting. I noticed the same thing actually. Alot of what I play on the deck are side scrollers, so I often just use the dpad. But a while back I was playing Fall Guys, and I actually did notice that the left analog had a weird feeling to it when held all the way up, gritty is a good word to describe it. I didn't notice anything with the right thumb stick. I don't have a solution, but reading your post brought this to mind.

Someone mentioned to me that it might be the cable for the capacitive touch surface? I was trying to avoid opening up my Deck, but that might be in order if that is the issue

[mbell]

Have you managed to solve this issue somehow (by cleaning the left thumbstick from inside, or anything else)? Or was it gritty due to the interference with the capacitive cable?

...I have exactly the same problem and looking for the solution.

[Veica]

I wiggled mine a bunch and it seemed to go away. I assume either I got some dust in there by accident or it just needed a little polishing up. I haven't re-experienced it for a couple months now.

[Voidcake]

Originally posted by mbell:

Have you managed to solve this issue somehow (by cleaning the left thumbstick from inside, or anything else)? Or was it gritty due to the interference with the capacitive cable?

...I have exactly the same problem and looking for the solution.

No solution yet, tho I've been busy with stuff IRL so I haven't had much time to experiment.

I'll be sending mine off to be RMA'd soon, will update the thread with how that goes! (Assuming I remember to)

[Construm]

Same problem since yesterday... left stick got stuck a little in lower right corner. Now moving it feels like rubbing your thumb over an inflated balloon but on a very small scale. Sorry, don't know how to discribe it otherwise. Can't be dust, because I don't play that often and its always in protective casing. (DBrand with travel cover.)

[mbell]

Originally posted by Construm:

Same problem since yesterday... left stick got stuck a little in lower right corner. Now moving it feels like rubbing your thumb over an inflated balloon but on a very small scale. Sorry, don't know how to discribe it otherwise. Can't be dust, because I don't play that often and its always in protective casing. (DBrand with travel cover.)

Your description is actually very appropriate. :) I solved the issue with mine by taking the Deck apart and wiggling several times with the stick to its widest extent (you can't really do that in the assembled state). I also cleaned the joystick little bit from some kind of white paste, which was obviously causing the strange "over an inflated balloon movement" feeling. It helped a lot, and since then it moves very smoothly, like the right thumb stick.

[Rafu]

Originally posted by Construm:

Same problem since yesterday... left stick got stuck a little in lower right corner. Now moving it feels like rubbing your thumb over an inflated balloon but on a very small scale. Sorry, don't know how to discribe it otherwise. Can't be dust, because I don't play that often and its always in protective casing. (DBrand with travel cover.)

did you solve the issue ? I got the same as of now

[JoPe]

Same problem here, it's a well known problem on a lot of Deck (even OLED). It come from two factors :
- the capacity captor câble that rub the grey dome.
- the grey dome that rub the cover plate.

You need to open the Deck and adjust screw tension and add a little scotch tape on the capacitor câble.

Hope it helps !

[Wolfenburg]

Originally posted by JoPe:

Same problem here, it's a well known problem on a lot of Deck (even OLED). It come from two factors :
- the capacity captor câble that rub the grey dome.
- the grey dome that rub the cover plate.

You need to open the Deck and adjust screw tension and add a little scotch tape on the capacitor câble.

Hope it helps !

Pardon, I'm retarded. Which one is the captive capacitor cable? Just the cable providing power/ input to the thumbstick? Why do I need to adjust the screw tension?

I assume we're talking about the red cable on this replacement thumb stick pictured here : https://imgur.com/EoKUbPc

Would I just tape it down to the PCB to keep it away from the thumbstick dome, or tape it to the body of the thumbstick to keep the edge of the thumbstick dome away from the cable when the thumbstick is pushed fully in one direction?

thanks

[Voidcake]

May as well mention that I've had my Deck for a while after RMA and while the issue was temporarily resolved, it seems to have come back alongside a new issue of the left trackpad being squishy.

Not looking forward to another RMA because they'll wipe my system again, but it's looking like I'll have to regardless.

[✘GreedoShotFirst✘]

I had this problem with my Deck when I first got mine and it eventually faded after a while of use/wear on the sticks.

[JoPe]

Originally posted by Wolfenburg:

Originally posted by JoPe:

Same problem here, it's a well known problem on a lot of Deck (even OLED). It come from two factors :
- the capacity captor câble that rub the grey dome.
- the grey dome that rub the cover plate.

You need to open the Deck and adjust screw tension and add a little scotch tape on the capacitor câble.

Hope it helps !

Pardon, I'm retarded. Which one is the captive capacitor cable? Just the cable providing power/ input to the thumbstick? Why do I need to adjust the screw tension?

I assume we're talking about the red cable on this replacement thumb stick pictured here : https://imgur.com/EoKUbPc

Would I just tape it down to the PCB to keep it away from the thumbstick dome, or tape it to the body of the thumbstick to keep the edge of the thumbstick dome away from the cable when the thumbstick is pushed fully in one direction?

thanks

Yes, it's this red cable, but it's not the power cable (Sticks are powered directly from the PCB to the switches. It's the cable for the capacitor (touch detection on the top of the stick, that's a Steam Deck feature)).

You can tape it down to the PCB but sometimes the cable is too short... so, it's better to just add a scotch wrap around it. Also the majority of the friction is not coming from this cable. It's the grey dome that's rubbing the top cover plate of the Deck. And for this friction, the only solution i found was to lessen the screws maintening the top plate in place (or, on some Deck, there is a little space between the PCB and the stick block, and you can try to put it some 1/10 milimeters more toward the PCB, that may help too. Because if you lessen too much the screws you will get another Steam Deck well known problem : the IPS screen will have light leaks... (grey halo when you have a black/dark background). so... you need to find the right fit.

Hope it helps ! Valve needs to look into these well known issues for the Deck V2... Even OLED ones got the stick problem (well, light leakage doesn't exist on OLED because of the technology itself).