A Couple of Problems.

Hi all,
I seem to have two seperate problems, i dont think they are related though. The first one is my computer some times does not want to power up at all, but if i leave it for a few hours it comes on as if nothing was wrong. I have tried changing the power supply, but that was not it. Is there anything on the mother board that can make or break a connection when it feels like it. The other problem is i get a fatal exception error message with a blue screen, it reads. OE 0167:BFF86EBD.
It also restarts after it has been on for about ten mins.

Please can you help me. Regards, Robert.

Take the side off the case and pull the connector from the front power switch off the header pins on the mottherboard, then short the pins out momentarily with the tip of a screwdriver. If it comes on everytime then you need a new power switch.

Not too sure about the other problem, what OS are you using?

while you're checking that power switch, take a look at the rest of the motherboard. see the tall cylindrical capacitors on it? they look kind of like small batteries. examine all of them. are any of them leaking fluid (usually brownish, sometimes dried into a crust)? are any of them bulging at the top where the X is? the tops should be perfectly flat, almost concave. the three capacitors at the top of this motherboard (right underneath the 'ibm' logo) are bad.

Thankyou lads, i think you might be right about those bits on the mother board Chris, they dont look to healthy. Any ideas on the fatal exception error message.

Regards, Robert.

An 0E exception is a Windows Page Fault and relates to memory. A page fault also occurs when a paging protection rule is violated (when a page retrieve fails, or data retrieved is invalid, or the code that issued the fault broke the protection rule for the processor).

If this is a problem that began after you made some change to the system, then whatever you did is suspect. For example if you added a video card and now get this error, the card may be bad.

1st place to start is:

START | RUN

Type in msconfig

Uncheck everything that is starting up except systray and explore

Now re-boot, if it goes away then it's a start-up program causing it, go back and recheck one-at-a-time, until you find the culprit.

tycapel7:
the fatal exception error message may very well be caused by the bad capacitors. the capacitors regulate voltage, and if the voltage regulation is off, strange things can happen. if any of the capacitors are bad, the most cost effective solution is to replace the motherboard. can you get a picture of the capacitors?

i got those fatal exception erros often.

when i changed my mobo, it was gone.

probably there's a fault when mobo access virtual memory.