Diagnose and recalibrate your DualSense analog sticks for free — directly in your browser.
Stick drift occurs when your controller's analog stick registers movement even when you aren't touching it. In games, this looks like your character slowly walking forward or the camera spinning on its own. It's caused by the physical wear and tear of the internal potentiometers—the small carbon sensors that measure the stick's position. Over time, friction, dust, and aggressive gameplay degrade the sensor's accuracy, causing the resting "center" point to shift and constantly send false signals to your console.
Using Controller Diagnostic Lab, you can re-center your analog sticks entirely through software without taking apart your gamepad. Our tool connects to your controller via the WebHID API and accesses its non-volatile storage (NVS) memory mirror. By reading the current resting position of your sticks, it calculates the exact offset and writes a new hardware-level calibration curve directly to the controller. This forces the controller to recognize your physically worn resting position as the true absolute "center", eliminating minor to moderate drift instantly.
Yes, Controller Diagnostic Lab is completely free and open-source. There are no paywalls or hidden fees.
No! The tool runs entirely in your web browser. You just need to use a browser that supports the WebHID API, such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.
Software calibration fixes the drift by adjusting the controller's internal deadzones and center offset (updating the NVS mirror). This is an immediate fix for moderate drift, but if the physical sensor continues to degrade over months of heavy use, you may eventually need to replace the potentiometer hardware itself.