Drift Tester

Quick start

1. 1
   Connect your controller. Plug it in over USB, or pair it over Bluetooth in your device settings first.
2. 2
   Press any button first. Browsers will not notice a controller until they see its first input, even from a button rather than a stick.
3. 3
   Let go of both sticks and do not touch them. The timer below needs an unbroken stretch of true stillness to give an honest verdict.
4. 4
   Wait for the test to finish. A short test catches obvious drift, a longer one catches the slow kind that only shows up after a stick warms up.

Run the drift test

What this test actually checks

Stick drift is a hardware problem where an analog stick reports movement even though nothing is touching it. Inside the stick sit two small potentiometers, one for each axis, that measure how far it has moved from centre. Over time the resistive material inside wears unevenly, and the stick starts reporting a resting position that has quietly shifted away from true zero. Software cannot fix this, since the part itself is reporting bad data, not misinterpreting good data.

A single glance at a stick's resting number is not always enough to tell drift apart from ordinary sensor noise, because both can look similar in a short snapshot. This test instead watches the stick continuously for a chosen window, tracks the worst offset reached, the average offset across the whole window, and whether you accidentally touched the stick partway through, then gives a verdict based on the full picture rather than one frame.

How to read your results

The plot and trail

The dot marks where the stick currently sits. If it is meant to be at rest and the dot is meaningfully away from dead centre, the faint trail behind it shows you the shape of that wander, a tight little circle or a slow drift in one consistent direction.

The progress ring

This fills as the test runs and shows the percentage of the chosen duration completed. A test that gets interrupted partway, because the stick moved past the stillness allowance, restarts the ring rather than counting the broken time, since a drift test built on broken segments cannot give an honest verdict.

Current, peak, and average offset

Current offset is the live reading right now. Peak offset is the single worst moment recorded during the test, useful for catching a brief spike that current offset alone would miss. Average offset smooths across the entire test window and is usually the most reliable single number for judging whether a stick has real drift, since a healthy stick's average should sit very close to zero across a sustained period, not just in a lucky instant.

Breaks

A break is counted whenever the stick moves enough during the test that it can no longer be considered untouched, which restarts the current attempt. Frequent breaks usually mean the test was interrupted by an actual touch rather than the controller itself, so if you see a high break count, try the test again somewhere the controller will not be bumped or rest against anything.

The verdict

Once a full, unbroken window completes, each stick gets a clear pass or fail style verdict based on its average and peak offset across that window. This is the part worth screenshotting if you are filing a claim, since it states plainly whether the test considers the stick healthy or drifting, rather than leaving you to interpret a raw number yourself.

Why test length matters

A ten second test is enough to catch obvious, constant drift, the kind where a stick clearly never returns to centre at all. It is not always enough to catch the slower kind, where a stick behaves normally cold but starts wandering once it has warmed up from a few minutes of regular handling, or where dust has settled in a way that only causes trouble after the stick has been moved through its range a few times. A thirty or sixty second test, run after a short normal play session rather than immediately after picking the controller up fresh, gives a more honest picture of how the stick behaves under the conditions it actually sees during real use.

If a short test passes cleanly but you still suspect something is off based on how the controller feels in game, run the longest test available after fifteen or twenty minutes of regular play rather than concluding the hardware is fine from a cold ten second check alone.

Using this for a warranty claim

Manufacturers generally respond well to concrete evidence rather than a description of the symptom alone. Run a full thirty or sixty second test on the affected stick, let the verdict resolve, then use the copy report button to grab a plain text summary covering the average offset, peak offset, and verdict for both sticks. Paste that alongside your proof of purchase when you open a support ticket or warranty request. Most manufacturers treat stick drift as a known, acknowledged failure pattern, so a claim backed by a clear test result is rarely contested.

Connecting by device

Windows and Mac

Plug in over USB, or pair over Bluetooth in your system settings first. Chrome, Edge, and Firefox all support the controller out of the box once it is paired.

Android phone and tablet

Pair the controller in your device's Bluetooth settings, then open this page in Chrome. Other Android browsers vary in their support.

iPhone and iPad

Pair an MFi or Bluetooth controller in Settings, then open this page in Safari. iOS has supported the same Gamepad API since version 14.5.

Linux

Plug in over USB or pair over Bluetooth, then use Chrome or Firefox. Some distributions need a one time udev rule for certain Bluetooth controllers to be recognised by the operating system at all. If the controller is not visible at the system level, it will not be visible here either.

Troubleshooting

The test keeps restarting before it finishes

Something is touching the stick during the window, even lightly. Set the controller down on a flat, stable surface rather than holding it, since a slight grip shift while holding it is often enough to register as movement.

One stick passes and the other does not

This is common and meaningful. Sticks wear independently based on which one sees more use in your typical games, so a mismatched result usually points to a genuine hardware difference between the two rather than a testing inconsistency.

The verdict says healthy but the game still feels like it drifts

Try a longer test after a short normal play session rather than a fresh cold test, since some drift only appears once a stick has warmed up. It is also worth checking whether the deadzone configured in that specific game is set unusually low, which can make ordinary sensor noise feel like drift even on a stick this test considers healthy.

Nothing happens when I connect a controller

Press a button first. Many browsers will not register a controller until they see its first input, and a stick alone is sometimes not enough to trigger that first detection.