Dead controller

[Imanutter]

Hi all sorry if this has been posted before tryed the search but no joy.
I have just picked up a matrix controller but it won't turn on, rechargeable battery, new aa's  or the plug and play lead No response from any.
If anyone can help would be great full for your help.

[Nevbox]

Well you could take it apart and clean it, often they can very dirty.

[Imanutter]

I have took the board out cleaned and checked it over. It has no sign of damage that I can see.

[1TONpete]

Do you have a different power source you can directly wire to the controller boards battery pins? See if your board is really getting power.

[Nevbox]

Yeah those pins can come loose

[whitetop]

have you tried plugging your wire into your pc if it detects it them its something i have on my 2 pads no light ups but pc detects it very strange.

[1TONpete]

I had 2 controllers with a cold solder joint on the ground pin of the battery. Re soldered the pin and boom lighted right up. @ white my 2 controllers both were detectable from pc because the pc used usb to power the board , but the PnC when connected to the xbox needs the battery to work . I could be wrong about last part. 

[whitetop]

not sure they the only wireless ones i have but why need battery's if using the wire it could be a bad solder but if he has the wire try it on the pc if it comes on or dectected then the controller is not dead

[Imanutter]

I have pluged it in my laptop but it was not detected. Just wondering if there is any points on the board to test to see if there is power at the main points?

[RDC]

The controller will work fine with just the PnC connected, it doesn't need a battery to work with the 360, it'll just cry low battery every now and then is all.


Make sure L4 is still on the board, a good shot will sometimes knock that thing off there and then you'll have a dead controller. If it's missing, just jumper wire it and you should be good to go.

If L4 is on the board, then look around the Left and Right Sticks on the top side of the board for corrosion. If something is spilled on the controller it runs down and corrodes up traces and parts and can kill, or even half kill it. The areas around T1 and T4 are usually the main suspects there.

I've also seen R41 go bad and cause a dead Matrix, as well as a bad Via that didn't let power thru from the batteries.


Barring any of those being the problem, break out the DMM and start doing some comparison checks on a working Martix, keep it around for parts, or just bin it.