Bah.... PP/PPII boards can be bulletproofed rather easily. The biggest issue with PP/PPII boards is +5 voltage and the edge connector. The first and foremost problem is that there just wasn't enough +5 pins for either the mainboard or the video board IMHO. What results is the edge connectors get weak or a trace burns and the AR power supply "senses" the resulting lower voltage and adjusts to compensate... which causes more burning which causes the AR to send even more voltage until one day SOMETHING burns out be it the edge connector, the +5 traces or the AR sends so much voltage it burns something out in the +5 circuit on the boardset.
Simply solution: Remove the +5 pins from the edge connector (or clip them off). Then solder wires from each +5 test point on each board separately. Do the same with the GND points. Do so for both the main board and the video board. You end up with 2 +5 wires and 2 GND wires. Wire them to a molex connector (or something similar) and then wire in a switching power supply. Run some wire from the +5 and GND of the switcher to the other end of a molex. Just make sure to remove all +5 wires from the edge connector (you can leave GND wires as they're not going to hurt)... Ta-da... you're done. Both my PP and PPII boardsets work great using this method. I took the idea off a Dick Millken(sp?) repaired boardset (well, he had the wire loop going back to the edge connector... but I took it one step further with the advice of another KLOVian about the switcher idea).
Here is a picture of my PP boardset sitting in it's drawer... it sure looks hacked like a mo-fo, but it's effective... and changing out boardsets is as easy as 2 edge connectors and a single molex...