The dying hardware will make it slow, but shouldn‘t cause any login problems.
At the top of the page, does it show something like "Hello, Old Guy [ Stand Down ]" ?
Also, if you can try it again and let me know the exact error message that should shed some additional light on it.
Also ensure that if you‘re running a personal firewall like ZoneAlarm, that it‘s not blocking your cookies. You may also want to check your privacy settings in Netscape to ensure that‘s working OK. (The details vary from version to version, otherwise I‘d try to be more specific...)
Let me know how it goes - we‘ll get it nailed.
Cheers and good luck