Xbox360 Wireless controller problem

Frosty

I have 2 wireless controllers for my 360, as well as 2 of those play and charge recharge cables. Generally I just play with the cables plugged in, as my couch isnt so far from my 360 where I would feel tethered by the cords.

Recently, however, I noticed that the wireless ability of the controllers isn't working right (they won't work unless the cables are there). It's like they might as well not be wireless. When my 360 is off and the controller isn't plugged in through the cable, holding the guide button to turn on the 360 does nothing. I thought maybe the battery wasnt charged or something, but when I play with the controller plugged in through the cable, the light on the cable turns green after a minute or so, so I'm assuming its charged.

I've tried switching battery packs between the controllers, and switching the cables between the battery packs, but there's no difference between the two.

The only thing I can think of is that there's a problem with the sync between the controllers and the 360 (I had to have my 360 replaced for a non-RRoD related issue), but since the controllers can't seem to turn on without being directly plugged into the 360, I have no idea how to resync them

Any thoughts?

capnrico

I've noticed with mine that even when I sync my controller to something else (I have the wireless dongle for my PC), if I plug it in through the play and charge, it syncs back up to the 360. Dunno why, as no data is transferred over the USB cable, but oh well.

Anyway, when you have both the controller and 360 on (and not connected using the play and charge kit), sync them up by holding the sync buttons -- little round button to the right of the memory card slots on the 360, and little white button that's ordinarily hiding under your play and charge connector on the controller.

Frosty

capnrico wrote: »

Anyway, when you have both the controller and 360 on (and not connected using the play and charge kit), sync them up by holding the sync buttons

Thats the problem: the controllers won't turn on without being connected through the play and charge cable

I know I can just play using the cables, but its still frustrating as hell knowing in the back of my mind that the wireless doesn't work for some reason

Usurper

I've had the same thing happen just recently.

I have 2 wireless controllers. One which came with the console, the other from a previous RROD. After a 30 second blackout during a thunderstorm, the controller from the older 360 ceased to function unless plugged in with the recharge cable, behaving exactly as you described. The strange thing is that the wireless GH3 controller is still fine.

Have you had any power surges or spikes lately?

illig

since you always played with the charge cable, you may have killed your battery packs... rechargeable batteries only have a limited number of charge cycles... and i'm sure the charging system in the 360 isn't designed to keep your batteries in great shape

capnrico

Frosty wrote: »

capnrico wrote: »

Anyway, when you have both the controller and 360 on (and not connected using the play and charge kit), sync them up by holding the sync buttons

Thats the problem: the controllers won't turn on without being connected through the play and charge cable

I know I can just play using the cables, but its still frustrating as hell knowing in the back of my mind that the wireless doesn't work for some reason

Just holding down the start button won't turn it on?

If not, try reseating the batteries, I've had that happen before as well, where for whatever random reason the battery decides it's not seated properly and won't power the controller.

Also fun fact, I found out from someone else that accidentally dropped his, that the Xbox 360 controller battery packs actually just contain two rechargeable AA batteries.

RUNN1NGMAN

I'm pretty sure when you have the Play and Charge cable hooked up, the controllers are still functioning wirelessly and are just charging through the cable. In fact, I'm pretty sure it explicitly states that in the literature that comes with the Play and Charge kit. They don't act as "wired" controllers by communicating anything back to the console through the cable. So it's not a sync issue, they're still synced up fine or they would turn on and the lights would just spin on the controller. Your battery packs just aren't holding a charge any more, that's why the light turns green so fast—they only hold a tiny charge so it only takes a few minutes for them to fill up.

capnrico

You must have missed the part where I said exactly that and then said despite that fact, I've had the controller synced to my computer before, but plugging in the play and charge immediately pulled the sync back over to the 360.

Also, I must have missed the "light turns green fast" bit -- that's definitely the issue I had before where you need to reseat the battery pack. That, or as said above, you've killed them by constantly charging them.

Willeth

Yeah, dead batteries. We had almost all the controllers at work go like this.

Then again, that 360 was all kinds of fucked up. It wouldn't sync any controllers if there was a memory card in it.

JustinSane07

Did you try turning the Xbox on with the controller wired and then pulling the wire and seeing what happens?

If the controller dies, you know you killed the battery pack and you'll need a new one. If it stays on then you have a different problem entirely.