Hello. My Popeye Panorama seems to like to reset when I try to put it in my pocket and walk around. It's not much force and it resets. Would anyone know any reason this would happen? Faulty electronics? It works fine regardless, but it's annoying since I can't take it anywhere without it resetting. It's done this ever since I got it.

Hello,

Congratulations, Popeye Panorama is very funny game.

The reason why it resets could be the battery connectors, open the back and check if the metal battery connectors are with bad/cracking solder, if yes just re-sold again and the problem is solved.

If all is good maybe it's a capacitor problem but i bet that it's a battery metal conector with bad solder point.

g40rocket wrote: Hello,

Congratulations, Popeye Panorama is very funny game.

The reason why it resets could be the battery connectors, open the back and check if the metal battery connectors are with bad/cracking solder, if yes just re-sold again and the problem is solved.

If all is good maybe it's a capacitor problem but i bet that it's a battery metal conector with bad solder point.

I've cleaned the button terminals, and I've also did not see any cracks or anything with the batteries.
There was a time when tapping the front of the white panel for the screen would get it to reset, but it's not doing that too much right now.

It might be a bad capacitor, but how would I know which one?

Check all the screws (including the screws below the white rectangle plastic window).

Bad capacitors you need to check with a multimeter.

Would I need to disconnect the capacitor first before using the multimeter or will it not do any damage?

With help from g40rocket, I think I managed to get the unit to stop resetting! No more just leaving it at the desk all the time, I can take it around without it resetting now.

I opened up behind the mirror, cleaned all the metal parts with contact cleaner on a qtip, including the connections of the capacitors. I also cleaned the solder points of the ribbon cable that goes to the bottom of the unit vigorously. It appeared some weird debris as flaking off.

After that, I dusted the motherboard with some canned air, reassembled, and it hasn't reset since. Hopefully it stays that way.

I've carried it in my pocket and walked around all over the place and it's still good.

You're welcome Lems !

Another game watch repaired in the world. :mrgreen:

So, I honestly don't really take this unit with me anywhere since it's more pricey, flimsy in design and rare, but I brought it with me another time and it started resetting again.

I've found out what causes it to reset, kind of. A lot of times when I play it in my room, I put a light on shooting directly through the light panel on the front of the unit, and I remember one time that the game reset when I got too close to the light.

So, apparently, if I touch the light panel on the lightbulb, it resets the game. It seems like the light panel is picking up some type of interference from the light bulb and passing it through the LCD screen, which goes to the CPU and causes it to malfunction and reset.

The same effect can be done when I open up the device and have the light close to the CPU chip.

Aluminum foil helps shield any interference from the light, and even touching it won't cause it to reset.

Problem is, I can't do aluminum foil shielding on the light panel or else it'll block the light source.


It seems that maybe as I walk around with the device in my pocket, some interferences set it off sometimes. Maybe it's static electricity. It seems like it's getting picked up by the light source panel.

I'm not sure if anyone else has this problem or if the device is just getting old, but yeah.
Either I'll always have to keep this on the desk, or if there's some type of way to shield the unit properly, I can't do anything.

Either way, like I said, I've already modded the unit a bit, one of them being masking tape pushing the ribbon cable ends to the conductors of the motherboard and LCD screen to stop the common problem of Panorama screen characters blinking in and out.
I prefer functionality to be at top peak.

I opened up the screen compartment and put shipping tape over the light panel, and it SEEMS to have fixed the problem, at least from light triggering a malfunction when touching the light panel with the light bulb.

Hopefully any interference won't go through the light panel anymore.

Well, I guess it helps reduce the problem, but any static shock I encounter resets the game.
Sucks. I don't know what else to do to static-proof it. I guess I can put it in a protective case.