Computer experts. My XP tower went dark. opinions

[zeebaron]

If I'm not mistaken, that motherboard was made when tons of bad electrolytic capacitors were in the supply chain. You might want to visually inspect the power supply and motherboard for leaking or swelling caps.

Yep, my first thought. Pretty much all computer motherboards and monitors from that era will fail because of them.

You might want to think about running XP in a virtual environment like VirtualBox than trying to keep an ancient computer running. XP was the last OS that could format and copy data to a floppy disk, so I need to do that occasionally for older equipment. Also runs my GM ancient 2006 car repair manual software. It connects to older peripherals just fine running virtually on my Windows 10 computer.

[zeebaron]

What MB can I buy that would use a cheap AMD CPU and be OK for a XP rebuild with the 9800GTX VC?

You are probably better off just getting a cheap used $10 Intel Core 2 Quad CPU like a Q6600 and matching motherboard. Pretty much the last and fastest CPU and MB that supported XP fully.

[Wulfmann]

If I run an AMD I can simply drop my XP OS SSD and other stuff without reprogramming

So AM2 and AM2+ for sure which would still run my 4800 CPU
I assume FM2 and FM2+would also run the 4800

What about AM3 and AM3+ will they load XP? Would I need a new CPU?

My 9800GTS VC is fine (512/256). Very little in VCs made now that runs XP

[macattack321]

XP is pretty unforgiving when it comes to moving it from one machine to another. The bigger difference in hardware between the two, the less chance that it will work.

An AM3 setup should run XP, but you might have a hard time finding drivers and whatnot.

Have you tried running your games inside a virtual machine, like zeebaron suggested? I also have an old GM manual that only runs on XP, so I use a VMWare virtual machine.

[Springfield]

You might want to think about running XP in a virtual environment like VirtualBox than trying to keep an ancient computer running. XP was the last OS that could format and copy data to a floppy disk, so I need to do that occasionally for older equipment. Also runs my GM ancient 2006 car repair manual software. It connects to older peripherals just fine running virtually on my Windows 10 computer.

Concur with zeebaron, If you can get your old pc running at all, migrate the whole XP disk into a virtual machine. I did that with several XP installations using VMware free tools, but that was a few years ago and there are likely better free choices now. The virtual machine can clone the old pc's disk ID and MAC address so installed licensed software usually runs fine from the new virtual disk. Hosted on a newer pc with lots of ram and an ssd, your old XP stuff may run faster in the new virtual machine than it did on the old pc.

[Wulfmann]

I have no idea what a virtual machine is
Since I stopped working on CFS3 and SH3 freeware projects I have totally ignored computers except for replacing dying components

XP PC now runs fine with the bad RAM stick removed. I was just looking to get some components for future repairs and was asking what will run XP in AMD MBs and CPUs. I bought 2 of the RAM sticks recommended, thanks
I have enough VCs to replace as Nvidea told me nothing is being made for XP anymore (I believe a Chinese company is making a 512/128 card shipped from China)
Since it is more storage and making labels I really don't want to make it a big project just enough to keep it running a while longer

I do appreciate the advice very much from all