ASUS A7V600- Severe Issues with BIOS or something different?

I will be straight to it. I used the ezflash to update the BIOS after installing XP SP2. The XP SP2 was a long download that did nothing more than sevrely hinder my ability to surf the web. So, I decided to reinstall windows without the new SP2, and just go for the SP1, and pick other updates I choose.

But other than this, THE New BIOS update for the A7V600 locked up the use of my keyboard. I downloaded the new update {v1007} because I have a SATA Hard drive. The thing is, I have suspected that something is bottle necking the system- as it is currently as fast as the system I am using now to write this message (which is 6 years old).

I have ran various spec checkers on the new machine- and nothing appears to be out of order. The processor is doing well, the fans cooling nicely, the video card performing its job in ordinary fashion- its just that this new machine doesn't seem to be accessing data from the SATA HD as fast as it should, including the OS. So what gives? I have flashed the BIOS with the older version update (v.1006) and now have access to the key board, but still- the problem remains the same. The SATA HD just seems to be functioning like a common ribbon cable HD- the kind that is on this machine I am using now- instead of the new technology.

What gives? I haven't yet installed anything from the disk that came with the MB, only the display drivers for the video card, I have stopped here. I am at a loss, I do not know if the drivers from the disk are slowing the system down, or drivers from the floppy to get XP to recognize the SATA HD are at fault (I made sure that the drivers were used from the floppy to utilize the SATA drive instead of letting windows use the drivers in XP).

At this point, I am reluctant to reccomend ASUS to anyone, as they created an update that essentially locked my system down, while providing an update for my SATA drive that may/may not have aided my situation.

The hardware I am running is as follows;

ASUS A7V600

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 1.83 ghz

512mb Ram

Utilizing a video card, trackball mouse

BUT using the onboard sound card (which shouldn't be effecting system performance)

This is how my initial questions have gone- only to recieve various advice on how to check the system performance. I do not wish to complain- BUT I will say that the hardware seems to perform rather well under diagnostic checks. It seems that there is a bottleneck somewhere in the system. Could it be in the BIOS? Is there something on the MotherB that should be switched to recognize an SATA drive instead of SCSI? Is there something in BIOS that I need to change? Should I change something in the POST screen? Is there any thing I can do to speed up simple processes- such as opening programs, acessing data/files?
I have searched for answers, and/or clues- to find nothing.

Please HELP me. Thank you!

[Jason425]

well all I know is that mobo is a worthless pos and everyone has problems with it.. Flash an older bios if that one sucks. try finding new drivers for the floppy disk that you use for the sata.