It went from bad to worse, while adding software and a newer video card the startup screen changed, looked pretty poor. The video card went in and the startup screen looked bad still. Also the changes meant I had to reactivate windows so I reformated and reinstalled XP, the computer is pretty much off the internet but I know it has picked up some malware, also the registry is messed up, loading time was faster at startup and I decided to try flashing the bios, hasn't worked since. Since I'd reinstalled windows Hal wasn't working so I wasn't able to see if she was faster. Waiting to hear from Asus before ordering another motherboard. The CPU and video card are good, but I get no display or audio, beeps or vocal messages.
I'll probably put another Hal on the other computer in the meantime to work with, I'd learned a little about VR's plugin and should be better able to work with Hal.
Carl2