Yes, I am building an island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, flying on a glider through Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or just enjoying The chaos of MarioKart 8, the Nintendo switch ($ 409 on Amazon) It is my absolute favorite piece of technology released in recent years. But with its plastic construction, odd support, and just acceptable battery life, it’s far from perfect. And now, after two years of use, my Switch suffers from Joy-Con drift which makes games seem possessed. When I’m not playing a Joy-Con, the characters go away on their own or the selection screens become a quick-scrolling mess. It is as if someone else has taken over the console and they are not good at playing.
Joy-Con drift has been known for years, but with the highest gameplay happening during the coronavirus pandemic, plus Switch and Switch Lite ($ 200 at Best Buy) Owners are experiencing annoying phenomena for the first time. In fact, in June, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa apologized for the “inconvenience the Joy-Con problems have caused.”
The good news is that you have options to solve this problem, some of which do not include tools or spending money. Here are five ways to fix, clean, and replace your Joy-Cons on your Nintendo Switch.
1. Calibrate or recalibrate your Switch Joy-Cons
The first thing to do if you notice Joy-Con drift (especially to the left Joy-Con) is to calibrate your drivers. This is the most direct way to get things back to normal. It’s worth knowing how to do this because you’ll end up checking the calibration at some point to get almost all of these tips.
That’s how:
- Remove your Joy-Con from the body of the Switch
- Go System settings
- Scroll and select Drivers and sensors
- Select Calibrate control bars
- Then press down on the control stick of the controller you want to calibrate.
You will find a calibration verification screen. If you are not touching or moving the joystick, you should see a plus sign in the middle of the circle. And when you touch the controller or move it, you should see a point. Move the troublesome joystick and you will see the color of the circle change from black to blue. If not, it’s time to recalibrate your control stick.
To recalibrate, press the X button. You will be asked to move your joystick in a specific direction and release it. Finally, after doing this to the left, right, up and down, you will be asked to rotate your control stick in a clockwise circle.
2. Clean the joystick of your Joy-Con
If you are still experiencing Joy-Con drift after calibrating and recalibrating, the next thing to do is clean the joystick. In the body of the Joy-Con at the base of the joystick is a sensor. Cleaning that sensor will solve the Joy-Con drift problem for most people.
If you look closely at the joystick, it appears to be wearing a graduation cap, the bottom of which has a rubber or silicone cover over the top of the mechanism. Saturate a cotton swab with 70% isopropyl alcohol and then rub it with a cotton swab against the bottom of that “graduation cap” to get some alcohol underneath.
Once you have worked, turn the joystick for 30 seconds so that the alcohol passes through the sensor inside. After doing that, let it sit for 15 minutes and check the calibration.
Two caveats: Do not apply isopropyl alcohol directly to the joystick. It could leak past the joystick mechanism and pass to other parts of the Joy-Con. Also, make sure your Joy-Con’s battery is completely drained before cleaning it. Electricity and liquids don’t always mix well.
When I did this the first time, it worked fine. Cleaning the control stick periodically brought my Joy-Con back to mint condition.
3. Nintendo will fix the Joy-Con drift for you
If calibration and cleaning don’t help, get Nintendo to fix it. The company has a Joy-Con repair program for hardware within its one-year warranty. However Nintendo has fixed Joy-Cons with drift issues for free, even if they are out of warranty.
The problem here is that due to the coronavirus pandemic, Nintendo’s repair facilities were reduced, and shipping could be delayed. So who knows how long it will take to get your Joy-Cons back.
Go to the Nintendo support page for more information.
4. Buy a new Joy-Con for your Switch
Another option (arguably the most expensive on this list) is to buy a new Joy-Con for around $ 50. However, individual Joy-Cons are often out of stock. Even if you find one to buy, it may not be the side or color you want.
And at $ 80, a pair of Joy-Cons will cost you even more. I would also not recommend buying the used ones because they could already suffer from Joy-Con drift.
5. Replace the joystick yourself
This last tip is the most drastic. You can remove the problematic joystick and put a new one in the case. There are numerous kits online. I got one from Amazon for $ 14, which comes with two new analog memory modules and tools.
Opening the Joy-Con, removing the joystick, and reassembling it all requires an intermediate level of skill and a high level of patience. Also, this process will void Nintendo’s one-year warranty.
To see what the process consists of, see my step-by-step guide. I should point out that since I did this my Joy-Con no longer has drift issues. That said, in the process of reassembling the controller, I broke a wire and lost the use of the left trigger button. Obviously, this was not the ideal result, but I’m happy to sacrifice my fire button to get rid of Joy-Con drift.
Now that your Joy-Cons are in order, look How to connect your PS4 DualShock or Xbox One controller to a Mac.