Pacman Sound Repair

Step Six: Pacman Sound Repair

If your Pacman machine plays great otherwise, but you just can’t hear anything. First open the coin door and see it there is a volume potentiometer or commonly called “pot”, installed.

Where To find replacement 5k Potentiometers 

If found adjust it while the game is On and playing. If you hear a short– meaning all of the sudden it comes on then goes off again; you have a short in your potentiometer. These are more than likely a 5k potentiometer that can be replaced very easily. However you might want to try simply re-soldering the wires going to the potentiometer as sometimes over the 30 plus years of the game’s life these can break or lose connectivity. So if you sometimes hear sound then more than likely simply re-soldering the wires will fix it. Or you can just replace the 5k potetniometer all together with a brand new one.

If no potentiometer is found there, then there is an actual volume adjustment pot on the main PAC Man PCB. It is in the upper right hand corner near the dip switches. The opposite side to where the main heat sync is.

Try adjusting it and see if you get an increase in sound. If you still hear no sound, next trace the wires back from the speaker which is located behind the marquee of the original Pacman or Ms Pacman game cabinet (Yours could be in a different location if your pacman is installed in a non original cabinet) and see if there’s not a break or something loose or disconnected from the speaker.

If all this tests good, you might just try to replace the original speaker. (The Speaker is only an 8 ohm and can be replaced very cheaply)