VERY SLOW XP Machine....

Given the age, its not a surprise the board crapped out. Are you getting a replacement board or upgrade the whole thing?

 

The motherboard died how is it still running? You sure they are not trying to rip you off? I would recommend dual booting and then transfering all the files out of the old computers root drive to your new partition's drive then format other partition. If that doesn't fix it then you are probably right but if a motherboard died and all you are expierencing is a slow down then you should count yourself lucky, somehow I doubt thats the case though and who ever is fixing your computer wants to charge you for a new mobo which basically is a new computer in itself.

 

What age ? I have several computers 10+ years old running 24/7 with any problems so if the mb died its probably bad piece from the beginning.
Most slowdowns are done by heat. I would check all the wents if they're spinning.

 

They gave them an old Compaq with the old HD as a secondary drive problem is I can't reformat it. I told them to treat it as a temp machine and to start thinking about getting a new machine. I back all their files up on my external anyway.