Problems with Thrustmaster Warthog?

[ozTRipwiRE]

Hi,

I am interested in buying a Thrustmaster Warthog. I have read through a lot of the forum posts about the flight stick. I noticed some negative comments about it. Could anyone who has had a bad experience with this stick tell me what went wrong and what they had to do to fix the problems, if they could actually fix them, especially if their specs are similar to mine.

My specs are: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, Intel® Core i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz, 6GB of system memory, AMD RADEON HD 6450 graphics card, Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 Hard Drive with lots of space, AMD High Definition Audio Device and IDT High Definition Audio CODEC Device.

I am not extremely technically minded so nothing too technical please! I realise that some people have had problems and have already discussed them online but any additional feedback from anyone would be appreciated. By the way I would be using it with no rudder pedals as I can't afford both at the moment. :(

Thanks in advance

[Ranger79]

Hello Sim Player,

 

I have the TM Warthog and the only issue after over 1 1/2 years of steady use is the stick has some "sticky" areas in certain places when moved, but its only a minor issue. Great stick, highly recommend.

[Subliminal-SS]

I owned one and had no issues with it, however I wouldn't expect to be able to Fly the Helicopters without the rudder.

 

Planes you can get away with keyboard presses, I mean I guess you could map a stick control to the rudder but its a serious consideration.

 

I also owned the Saitek Combat Pro Pedals, bought the Saitek Pro standard ones now and I like them just as much to be honest if not more because my heel counteracts the depression of the break whereas the very expensive Saitek Combat pro pedals didnt have a strong enough return spring for FSX with no deadzone.

 

Anywhoo, Food for thought. A pair of Cessna Pro Pedals went for £30 on ebay, a second hand pair of them if you have any patience (I didn't) would be a good bet there. But if you are only flying jets then dont worry about them.

 

I found the construction to be very solid and industrial, definitely better than the competitors including my X-65F I have now. (I just like the force sensing) In comparison to the sales numbers if say the number of people who have had issues is very small, and all that I have heard is just a little re-lubrication was required. I think everyone expects it to be completely bomb proof but it is still a mass production game controller, there will be a couple that were not quite lubed up good just like with anything really.

 

HTH

[Rockwulf]

Hi,

 

I have a Cougar and a Warthog. Both have problems.

 

My Cougar was that bad that i thougt about rebilding the internals.... other Story.

 

My Warthorg was fine from the outside, but after connecting it I faced the Problem of failing right Throttle. Ok here we go (again) lets have a look inside (I'm IT-Electrician).

 

After figuring out how to open it I found the same sh** I had with my Cougar.

Cold solder points massive amounts of hotglue well just bad manufactured electronics. I considered resoldering or replacement and went for the second. When I Pay 340,00 Euro (441,92 Dollar) for a "masterpice" of Hardware I think it should be working as intendet.

 

But after all I wouldn't want another. So far a friend has a Saitek and an other has an Logitech and both have much more Problems. Software issues, even worse electronics. Thats why I have purchased the Wartohg.

 

About the electronics, well I hope that TM isn't dooing it to maximise profit, but from my opinion the should change the assambling facility or at least kick the asses of the QC Section and use better connectors for the inside of the stick. I think in this range of price it would make sense investing some more here and and put the 10€ Price raise ontop....

 

As I mentioned same was with my Cougar, but this stick had serious construction issues. Several Mods are out for it. Most of em cost the same as the whole Stick but they are worth it.

 

I hope I could help and don't beat the cra* out of me for my bad english. I'm not a native :)

[metalnwood]

It's good to know what problems might crop up but as I am sure you know, ask for bad experiences for _any_ product and there will never be silence.

 

The hog certainly had problems affecting a good number of users when it was first released but problems seem far and few these days. I certainly could not say that I have heard any instances of failure more than any other stick about.

 

If you are thinking of going for the best stick around then it's a good choice and yes, you will hear of some bad experiences.

[Nerull]

Bought one end 2012 and so far it's working like a charm. I suppose they got the birth problems out of the way :)

[snafup]

Plug and play with dcs a10c. No problems whatsoever.Have very early model.If you get it, do the firmware update before you use it.

[thor363]

New Warthog - severed wires during production assembly

 

Just as background, a common problem I've been seeing is that there is frequently severed or at least pinched wires running up through the stick itself. I had ZERO buttons working on my brand new stick right out of the box. The stick x/y pitch and roll was fine though. The throttle portion was perfect BTW also. I 'pursued dilligently' and finally had Thrustmaster support on the line. They eventually agreed that since it was brand new, that they wanted me to open up the stick and see if any wires were severed or disconnected...and they agreed it would not void my warranty. So I opened it up gently, and found the 5 pin mini DIN connector on my stick had one severed wire, one mutilated wire, and one literally was shredded. Basically this was a simple QC problem that proves that these sticks (as awesome as I think the component quality is), were never TESTED from the factory. That's what I find to be lame. It would have been immediately rejected and refitted. As for the actual smoothness of the stick, it's like butter and not a catch. It's using a new type of grease from what I can see which is white. People complaining had previously said they were using a red grease that was causing 'sticktion' (their word not mine). This one from a movement perspective is awesomely smooth. So here I await the replacement parts and will let you know how it goes later. Also note that I had the option to RMA the stick, but I wanted it to stay here and be fixed properly seeing what their assembly people already had done. Check 6, Thor. :thumbup:

[Reksi-Erkki]

Mine had a dead L/G Warn Silence button. Didn't notice it for a while flying only the hog - I never bothered to silence that few seconds of beeping - but after I started needing the button for other profiles I took apart the throttle, figured out how to dismantle the button and resoldered the thin wires. Everything has been working well ever since.

 

IMHO, the mini joystick on the throttle doesn't feel quite as good as the rest of the hardware.

[thor363]

Warthog QA

 

Agreed. I heard the same issues with the throttle also. I've asked TM to escalate my question to management. Asking...what are they doing to add a QA step to have someone test the end product? Making the consumer into your QA tester of the most expensive (which should equal highest quality) joystick on the market, is not a way to garner more market share. Pretty lame IMHO. I have to admit though, if you are persistent with TM Tech Support, they do stay in touch. I call, I email and I never give up. :pilotfly:

[VanjaB]

A small suggestion: Upgrade your graphics card. The game will be too choppy for you to get any real precision out of your Warthog.

[thor363]

I'm pretty sure even if I only run on one of my two 6970 2gb cards, it'll be fine...but thanks for the suggestion! Maybe I do need a Video card upgrade! ;)

[thor363]

Pic of 5 pin DIN

 

This is the reference pic from TM support. Note the super crappy solder job. I'm still not convinced that this is the correct from the factory wire color/pin connections. Anyone with a proper pic with a factory connection...it would be appreciated. Thanks guys! Also thanks to Ronin for the Warthog Vid, it was awesome.

[thor363]

Pic added

[thor363]

TM's 5 Pin Mini DIN Pinout diag for reference

 

Pic only

[DD_Crash]

Mine had a dead L/G Warn Silence button.

IMHO, the mini joystick on the throttle doesn't feel quite as good as the rest of the hardware.

I remembered seeing a quick useful mod for the curser/ministick on the throttle. The main problem with the curser is that its hard to move it smoothly, due to it being hard to get a grip with my finger tip. I had a root in my bookmarks and found it. I did a similar thing using a small piece of a grinding pad and a double sided sticky pad cut using a hole punch that I used for files. It took me less than 5 minutes to do This is the picture that inspired me.

 

[cichlidfan]

Now that looks like a nice fix.

[Niels Hoffman]

I bought my Thrustmaster Wartog last year. Never had problems with it. It was plug and play for me! Don't think you can wrong with purchasing this product! If it ever brakes down i wil buy another one straightaway!!

[thor363]

Baffed brand new TM Warthog

 

You must have been one of the lucky ones! Mine came brand new like this photo shows. I've waited a week for the new parts, which is a replacement 5 pin female mini-DIN and a tiny ribbon cable and a new ground wire. These all need to be micro-soldered in (TM says all this doesn't void warranty...they had asked me to open this up and check it btw). I've also wanted a proper wire color to 5 pin solder diagram, which they haven't been able to provide. The photos they had sent came from their own internal Wiki, and are not clear, nor correct.

 

Still hoping someone who has taken the female 5 pin mini-DIN out of the base (gently) can shoot a picture of the color to pin combo.

 

Non of my buttons on the stick had worked at all, yet the independent throttle is working perfectly. BTW, some have mentioned a sticktion problem, but it appears the grease has been changed in new releases to a white grease which may be a lithum grease...not sure what it is but it's smooth. In my humble opinion, I wish for such issues, that Thrustmaster sent a brand new INSPECTED and QUALITY ASSURED base unit once I was confirmed as the original purchaser...that would be proper customer service.

[hreich]

DD crash..please explain how to make quivk mod for mini-stick, or share a link

[DD_Crash]

DD crash..please explain how to make quivk mod for mini-stick, or share a link

Here is the thread that I stole the idea from :smilewink: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3770263/Warthog_Cursor_Mod#Post3770263

[hreich]

Thanks... Finally i managed to fix that sloppy excuse of a slew stick that TM made on my preciouss warthog. Such an easy fix and i didn't managed to think of it myslelf...kudos to you Dd_crash