Quote my post and fill in the blanks. Please try to answer as many of the questions as you can. This a survey for all PS3 owners, so if you're not having problems please still fill it in.
A 'spaz' is defined as a mid game/XMB operation where the controller becomes unresponsive for a short period of time, sticking to a button press or direction. The controller does not notify that it has disconnected and resumes normal operation.
If you do not suffer from any spazzes, please fill in the survey only up to question 8. It will help to eliminate possible causes for spazzing.
About your PS3
1) Do you suffer from Sixaxis spazzing?
2) Which PS3 model do you own?
2i) If 60GB, do you actively use the wifi interface?
3) How long have you owned/used your PS3?
About your environment
4) Do you have other active Bluetooth devices in your house?
5) Do you have an 802.11b/g wireless network?
5i) If yes, please indicate the channel of operation.
6) Do you own a Nintendo Wii and experience the same issues?
6i) If yes, are the issue less or more prevalent?
7) Where do you live? In a 2.4GHz polluted environment (Apartment complex, dorm, etc)?
8) How far away do you sit from your PS3?
About your spazzing
9) Do they occur every gaming session?
10) Do you notice them with every game?
11) What is the typical duration of your spaz?
12) Do you notice any other controller performance issues other than the spaz?
13) How many spazzes would you estimate you've had?
14) Do you find the spazzes occuring irrespective of how charged your Sixaxis is?
About your solutions
15) If you have discovered a way to reduce your spazzing, please describe your actions.
Update 1
Thanks to everyone who responded. Here are the results from the first 19 people to fill in the survey:
- 32% of respondents did not suffer any spazzing
-- Of those, all used Wi-Fi in their home (83% were using built in Wi-Fi)
-- 50% Of those who did not suffer spazzing would be considered to be living in a 2.4GHz polluted area
-- 83% use Bluetooth in their home for other applications
- 68% of respondents suffered from spazzing
-- There is no obvious correlation between spazzing an model, or Wi-Fi usage.
-- All spazzes were categorised as having a duration less than 5 seconds.
-- The mean number of spazzes was around 8, the mode being between 1 and 4.
-- No correlation exists between Wi-Fi channel and spaz quota, nor battery charge.
-- People don't play enough, or own enough games to conclude whether this occurs irrespective of game played.
-- It does not occur every gaming session, but indications are that given a long enough session, a spaz will occur.
-- Several respondents did not use Wi-Fi or Bluetooth at all in their home and still suffered from spazzes.
- People owning Wiis and also suffering from spazzes did not notice any irregular behaviour in their Wiis.
- Jonnyram is going to be blind by the end of the year.
Notes:
Obviously the sample size is way to small to draw any conclusions yet, but it certainly looks like wireless interference shouldn't be the culprit. Unless Sony has made their controller extremely sensitive to interference that is. Given how seemingly indiscriminate it is, and how it does not happen consistently or particularly often I'm inclined to believe it to be a hardware defect either with the controller or PS3 unit. I realise now that it would have been a good idea to ask if people who are suffering from spazzes find it occurring with all of the controllers they own if they own more than one.
It's way too early to tell what's going on conclusively, since not enough people are playing games or working with multiple controllers to determine these things. People who have developed solutions, may be simply sat in the dwell time between spazzes, or they may have resolved a hardware conflict.
Given how infrequently it's happening, it could be the kind of 'low risk' problem that a big corporation deemed too expensive to fix, without considering the non business (i.e. real world gaming) impact. I'm really hoping that if it is a hardware issue, be it defect based or software configuration based, that it lies with the controller.
Non survey theories:
Bluetooth uses Adaptive Frequency Hopping, where it can determine whether a channel is 'good', 'bad', or 'unknown'. It could be possible that some kind of glitch is poisoning the table which holds these values and that over time it becomes untenable to jump to a new frequency (I think there needs to be at least 20 channels available to operate normally).
Bluetooth masters keep a clock which the connection between PS3 and Sixaxis must operate to. This has deviation tolerances, but over time it may possibly break down.