The X52 has been a flakey beast for me, the configuration has proven to be inconsistent between people and the driver install has not been what you would call 'bullet-proof'. When It works then it's a great joystick and meets my needs. Getting it to work is not always straight forward.
This all came back to me yesterday evening when I sat down to get a few jumps in back towards the bubble only to find the X52 had no lights. It turns out that my kids had been making dens in the room and decided the space under my desk was a perfect place to use. One of them obviously managed to hit the USB connector for the X52 and it had snapped the internal socket off of it's board at the front of the case. Once I had stopped shouting I realized the stick itself looked OK so tried a different USB port. Nothing. Tried one at the back of the machine. This time it started the 'detected hardware' dialogue which got stuck and did Nothing.
So - I first went the procedure on the Mad Catz website for installing the beta drivers for Win10 - here. This made no difference, still not detecting it.
Then I found a post showing a different remove procedure (here) which I followed and then tried installing the beta drivers again. Still no joy.
And then I found another post with another solution
Plugin the X52
Go to device manager and delete the X52 and USB devices with an ! sign (warning/not installed correctly)
Restart your PC
Unplug your X52
Run the installer (with the latest beta drivers for W10)
When the screen pops up with the instruction to plugin your X52 -> plug it in...
Just let the installer run (with the NEXT button greyed out) and go to device manager
Right click on the X52 device and select update driver
Choose "let me pick" (2nd option) -> you get a list of 2 compatible devices
Now select the 1st option "USB device" or something similar NB: NOT the 2nd one with USB X52 in the name!!!
Directly after this W10 detects your X52 and you can select NEXT in the installer
Install will continue and finish correctly
I tried the going into Device Manager and choosing the different (non-x52 named) driver without the installer running and it worked for me. My Joystick was back up and running just in time for me to go out for the evening without launching the game at all
But tonight I should be good to go.
If anyone else has issues I hope this helps.
btw, I've ordered a replacement 3.5" front USB device but will not fit it yet as this gives me some scope for 'surgery' on the desktop to put in a new GPU without needing to come up with a reason for what I'm doing
