Ms. Pacman Issues

[jimto]

Hey all,

Picked up a Ms. Pacman I want to restore to it's former glory, but I was hoping to solve an issue with it before getting into the cabinet resto part of the project.

It seems to work fine until I have an interaction with a ghost. Whether it is catching me or I am eating them while blue, the machine resets. Some random junk shows up on the screen, then it fills with characters, flashes some more junk, then shows the screen grid, and goes back to the "Push Start Button" screen. I can run around the maze and avoid ghosts and it will not reset.

If I go into test mode, it reports an "OK" for the memory and reports the settings I have the dip switches set for. Any suggestions?

[jimto]

Silly me, overlooking the Obvious. Found 2 loose ground wires, tightened them up, played a game, 3 or 4 screens, ate some ghosts, got eaten, seemed to work fine.

I'll play it a few more times, but I think this one is solved.

[jimto]

Sigh.

Not solved. I played another game and it was alright. Then I did a 2 player game and it reset after the 2nd blue ghost player 2 ate.

Went back to a single player game, lasted I think 2 ghosts. Played another single player game and it's back to resetting after the first ghost interaction.

 

[Finalheaven]

I remember having reset issues myself. From what I can remember, the first step I took was to check the fuses. When that didn't work, I went ahead and replaced the entire fuse box, including the fuses. If I recall correctly, that seemed to take care of the restart issue.

On the other hand, I would also check the power connector on the Main PCB. Chances are you'll have some burnt out or oxidized pins. I'd check those. You may need to repair anywhere from one pin to the entire connector.

That would be my advice, but take it with a grain of salt as I am an amateur like yourself that restored my own Ms. Pacman machine. I'm pretty sure I posted any problems I had and the relevant fixes in that thread: 1981 Ms. Pacman Restoration