USB joystick detects when plugged in, but fails to respond sometimes

I have a Saitek/MadCatz joystick. I plug it in when I want to use it. Sometimes it works fine, other times it doesn't. I have a hard time with intermittent problems...if the hardware is bad, how does it work some of the time? Software is a series of steps...if the computer follows the same series of steps every time I plug the thing in, how does it arrive at a different place?

Anyway, when it goes bad this is the situation.

The stick shows up under devices and printers, properly identified. When I right click on it and go to game controller settings nothing on the stick responds. Frequently, unplugging and plugging back in fixes the problem, but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes repetition two or three times gets it to work, and sometimes I give up after multiple attempts.

Stick runs on a standard Windows driver, which is up to date. Windows 7 64bit.

I've tried a lot of stuff like removing the stick through device manager and then scanning for hardware so it reinstalls, and so far everything seems to be just like unplugging and reconnecting...sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.

Searching for solutions comes up with a whole lot for "not recognized," which don't seem to address my problem.

Any ideas?

As administrator schedule a check disk (chkdsk c: /f)
If it doesn't find bad blocks or bad clusters, run a system file check (sfc /scannow). If it finds some issues run it 3 times, rebooting after each time.

Well, that's always good advice for pretty much everything...but much to my chagrin I solved the problem about ten minutes after I posted it.

As I was thinking about what I posted, and what more detail I could add if no one had any ideas...

Plug in joystick, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't...and over time the sometimes it doesn't was getting more frequent...

Tim, you dimwit...clean the contacts on the USB connector.

Thanks for the effort...this forum has never failed me.