As others have already pointed out, there are many problems inherent with trying to preserve electronics in a working condition for such a long period of time. All of the components (down to the smallest level) would have to have been designed and manufactured for long-term stability, as would the data storage media holding the BIOS, operating system, apps, and user data. If this prerequisite is not met, it'd simply be a crap shoot as to whether any of it would work after 50 years sitting idle, no matter how you chose to store it. Doubly so, since the systems in question are hardly in fresh-from-the-factory pristine condition to begin with.

Besides, I fear that the methods of preparation and storage that would be needed to give the system a real chance of booting up, would be beyond the means of a small school project like this. You'd have to back up not only the OS and data disks, but the BIOS EEPROM and *every* other ROM or ROMlike chip in the system, including those on video/soundcards, hard/floppy/CD/DVD drive circuit boards, the display controllers in the the monitor, etc. ... and back it up multiple times to media that has a chance of surviving for decades (I'm talking factory-stamped CD/DVD-ROMS, not user-writable discs).

Then you'd have to make sure those media are stored in archivial fashion: properly packaged and stored under carefully-controlled conditions of temperature and humidity in a dust-free, pollutant-free environment, perhaps even going so far as to seal them in an inert gas. And you'd have to do the same to the computer hardware, preferably NOT in the same physical location or container, as the electronics could degrade and affect the data storage media.

It would be far easier to merely preserve the hardware and storage media as inert objects for museum display, with no expectations of keeping them in working order. And even then, you'd have to be prepared to deal with toxic by-products leaking out of the electronics over time.

Either way, this would be a project better suited for a major university or privately-funded museum than for a small school. If you really want to press forward with it, I'd suggest contacting one of the larger museum institutions for suggestions and/ or assistance.

I base this on absolutely nothing, but my primary suspect is the cheapskate power supplies that these devices come with. However I've never cared enough to test it out.

I think you're right. This seems to be especially common on D-Link routers. I used to run a DI-624 which was stable for years, until one day it just started rebooting itself. Did it infrequently at first, but progressed to the point where it rebooted continuously and was unuseable. Poking around, I discovered that the AC adapter (power brick) was not only VERY warm, the plastic shell was actually deformed a little on one side. I replaced the AC adapter, and the router worked good as new... until a few years later, when AGAIN it started rebooting, then stopped working entirely. And AGAIN, the AC adapter was at fault (totally dead this time). And again, replacing the AC adapter resurrected the DI-624.

It seems to me that the manufacturers of residential-class routers really skimp on the power supply, or at least D-Link does. The AC adapters they've bundled in recent years are smaller than a deck of cards, yet I'm supposed to believe that they can put out 3 amps of current at 5VDC indefinitely?