I just canceled my order.
Money is tight, I know nothing about swapping parts.
I shouldn’t have to.
I’m not paying to swap out parts. I’m paying to play SF4 with a joystick.
Can’t say I disagree with this. The stick is great when it wants to work, but the fact that even the ones without the washer problem have other problems just makes me wonder what the point of buying one of these is.
Aside from modding.
My SE stick just broke. I have gotten less then two days of use out of it. I was actually having input issues but I thought “I can deal with this.” Now I can’t move left at all. I have to say I am a bit upset by this. I don’t know why they charge so much for the stick if they used such cheap parts. I have ordered a new stick and buttons also. I heard people also have had problems with the buttons so I might as well replace them to. I might was well and got me the TE stick now that I have spent this much on one stick. Well… there were none of those available anyway.
I had two of these and they both stuck.
Leave it to MadCatz to create another sub par product.
I am also another MadCatz ‘victim’
Well I got ‘lucky’ and scored the PS3 69.99 Fightstick from EBGames just this past tuesday. Not even an hour of play I encountered the ‘up-forward’ motion keeps registering as ‘up’. Then I was doing a ‘down-back’ motion then the stick did not spring backup to neutral; then i tried to go forward and my player seem to stuck in the down-back motion (character is still in crouch, WTF!@!@!).
So I imagine I might have this washer probs, google ‘sfiv fightstick issues’ and sure enough it already led me to this SRK forums. ah well i decided to salvage and spend another sanwa sitck and octogate for about $30, replace the stick altogether and see if this resolves my immediate problem.
All in all - to Markman and MadCatz execs, this was a pos frakked joystick and shame on you all in even representing one shady company and this pos product.
an yes im still going to echo the dissatisfaction that members already encountered with this so called ‘quality’ fightstick - YOUR PRODUCT SUXXXX!!! even if it was a ‘yugo’ grade purchase and not ‘par’ with your granddaddy TE edition, we expect at least for this to work a few months as this was supposed to be BRAND NEW. your quality assurance SUX!!!
my rant is ended…:mad:
ps - thx for the other members posting the work arounds. i already ordered my parts from lizardlick and just mod the darn thing.
I signed up to only commiserate.
I also got a PS3 Standard Edition Fighting stick from Gamestop last Tuesday and in under 5 minutes of going from package to plugging in the USB adapter to choosing the fighter to entering the Trials, my character got stuck doing a backwards jump and no button (kick or punch or Home) would stop it. The entire stick will not even function in any way now.
I’ve seen how people are saying don’t allow it to snap into neutral, so I followed that advice. I see how people are switching out for quality parts - all I have laying around is my old school Pelican Real Arcade Universal joystick for my PS2/Gamecube/XBOX - and I wouldn’t call that “quality”, but it has functioned more than the five minutes as above.
Thanks to this thread and the complaints I now know that the MadCatz was a bad purchase. Just wish I would have known that on Tuesday.
Great resource. I might stick around and learn how to actually switch out parts now for a better arcade stick.
Since you’re intent on voiding the warranty by modding it, you might as well perform the “washer fix” to your stick, perhaps it’ll last a little longer 
My screws were the same before i even touched them, i havent even tried drilling them out because i just don’t feel like dealing with it.
I’ve been waiting for 2 weeks now for Lizard Lick to send me parts that i’ve paid for and they havent even been responding to my emails… So im stuck playing with a controller right now… Very irritating.
This whole situation is ridiculous. Both MadCatz and Capcom claim that the SE sticks with defects are really uncommon, but the fact that quite a few people (including myself) have multiple sticks with these problems leads me to believe that most, if not all, the SE sticks are defective.
This is overall a horrible job, and i feel like a dumb ass for ever trusting madcatz to do anything right. Now i just hope lizardlick will get off their asses and send me my replacement parts.
I got my SE fightstick for the 360 yesterday. I’m experiencing the sticking issue, but I also had the entire stick go dead once. Nothing was working… the stick, the buttons, the 360 button, etc. Unplugging and replugging got it working again.
I’m sending it in to get the stick fixed, but I’m also worried that once I get it back, the thing will keep going dead. MC is estimating 4-6 weeks before they can get it back… that better not count on the damn 90 day warranty… if it’s going to then I’m going to just see if I can’t get a refund.
Hi guys,
I recently received my SE stick, and unfortunately it has the same washer problem as well, but I was able to fix it thanks to all the solution people posted, just want to say thank you.
After playing the game with SF4, I feel the stick is a little bit loose for my taste. So I am considering replacing the buttons and the stick. But I have a hard time deciding which to get since this SE joystick is my first one.
I read many claims Sanwa feel loose compare to Seimitsu. Is Sanwa’s looseness similar to the Mad catz one? How are Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT and Seimitsu LS-32-01 compare to the SE Madcatz stick?
I appreciate if you can share your opinion, thanks!
Sigh… ive been through this before and prolly will be again… but…
disclaimer Obviously there are issues, I wouldnt dare say otherwise, but as with any product, manufacturing issues occur***
with that said… the question is how many units are having actual issues.
I have one, and have put a good 40 hours of heavy use into it and have not encountered any problems yet. I hope it stays that way. But much like there are anecdotes of broken SEs, there are anecdotes of ones working fine. (like mine and my buddy who actually managed to snag one from the interwebs)
I just think its unfair to look at angry forums posts as some kind of barometer of how widespread the defects are. For one, internet bravado. people are more likely to bitch and moan and blow their issues out of proportion.
really… my issue is that we have no reason to think “that most, if not all, the SE sticks are defective.” Cus well, you have as much proof of that as i have for saying “every single SE is perfectly functional”.
I know people are pissed… but seriously… just dont void your 90 day warranty and they will pay for shipping and repair of your stick… 90 days is up, sure replace that shit.
but like someone said… you shouldnt have to mod that shit… and you dont. most people have chosen to, and now feel like madcatz forced them.
thems the breaks when you void your warranty.
when you go to mass produce a product, unforseen issues will pop up. I feel the company should be judged based on how they handle those issues, not simply hated because they occur. In this case, theyve handeled it very well. Free shipping of product in need for repair (good luck getting microsoft to do that… trust me, ive tried). Thats a shipping policy they had to change for this too. obviously full replacement and from what ive been told, a quick turnaround. Moreover, as soon as the internet nerdraged on them, they took the issue to their production facilities and had it rectified.
thats dealing with the situation pretty damn well if you ask me.
Of course if someone wants to chime in with production/defect numbers for these sticks then we could actually do the math. if it turns out its actually widespread, then i retract this entire rant. otherwise, its guesswork, and unfair to say something like:
"(this) leads me to believe that most, if not all, the SE sticks are defective."
or perhaps:
“we expect at least for this to work a few months as this was supposed to be BRAND NEW.”
How are you people glueing the washer down?
I don’t understand - are you just propping it up with a screwdriver or something and sliding the glew underneath?
I received my SE stick on the release date and everything seemed to be working perfectly fine until 2 days ago–its not registering the Down position at all. The stick doesn’t get stuck or anything it just won’t register the position.
Just called in for repair, staff comes off as very helpful.
I took off the PCB board and left up the washer and squeeze super glue under.
For your reference: http://dancameron.org/general/how-to-fix-your-sf4-standard-edition-fightstick-madcatz-fightstick
Running windows Vista home and my PS3 SE stick installed fine and works fine in the control panel. But, when using GGPO its lags like crazy. Very odd. Anyone else trying GGPO with their PS3 SE stick? My 360 SE stick has no noticable lag.
I’m going to send this POS stick back to Amazon. I wanted to mod it eventually, but the simple fact is that a broken stick is not worth $70. It’s not even worth $20.
If I wanted a box and a PCB, I would have ordered one. I was expecting a stick, not a defective product.
Joystick stopped working when trying to move anywhere from upper left to lower left. I voided the warranty, and ordered some parts, but I don’t know if that’ll fix it. I posted it in the customizing thread for the SE stick, but thought I’d do it here too. I was told to check the wiring harness, but I don’t know if I’m completely fucked/if buying a new joystick would fix it/etc. Damn stick. 
well i did just that and finding a hard time to prop the washer up with my fingers and make sure the washer is up enough to ‘tip’ some droplets of glue in there and make sure the washer drop back and aligned perfectly under the recess area where the washer will perfectly sit. after five or seven minutes i tried out my job only to find that the washer will still pop out (before putting all back together). maybe its my wood glue i am using but anyways it did not work and i just cleaned out the glue debris out and put that thing back together. i just decided to just wait for my sanwa replacement and not use the stick until then.
what i dont understand with the design of the stick part where that washer fits is wth is the recess for? is it just for that washer to be placed in there? i mean madcatz could just simply not place any recess in there and forget about the fargin washer i mean WTF kind of design is that. then this stupid recess is so shallow anyways and just to accommodate this loose washer sigh that is so asinine wth were they on drugs?!?
if anything at the least redeemable about the stick is, as advertised, the stick is soooo easy to mod. my hour time in there was good practise round to mod the stick. 
Yea i just got my SE in from Amazon today and the stick also sticks right out of the box. I decided not to glue it but just go ahead and remove the washer. Prolly wont be good for the plastic parts but I just need it to last till my JLF comes. oh yea, that e-clip was a pain to get off.
That e-clip was the bane of my existence for about an hour until I got it off. I feel for you. I also took out the washer, and it works fine besides it still being a mediocre stick.
Besides that though, I ordered a JLF too.