annoying prob w/ SNES adapter

[john]

i built a joystick a while back with snes hacks and have never had a prob with them.
now i was trying to add 2 more controls for 4P games using 2 NES pads and its gettin crazy on me.

i have the snes pads on 1 & 2 with the NES on 3 & 4. 3 player works fine. but when i plugged in the 4th control it works sporadically, with either SNES plugged in. i have to have both snes unplugged for ID4 to work right.

today i tried moving #4 to ID5. now both NES pads work with the snes plugged in, but both snes pads only respond to button 2 and that enables all buttons and moves the joystick to the top left . if it was just one snes control doing the weird thing, id try swapping the ID around again.

something is obviously interfering, but it doesnt seem to make sense. i doubt the software is a prob, directpad works great. maybe the parrallel port, but its on ECP and that how ive alway used them. perhaps a diff comp would work ? but that doesnt really make sense either.

any ideas or experiences ?