It's possible that the drivers you're using suck. I've found that any drivers provided from the motherboard manufacturer are total crap. I prefer to download and use the drivers from the CHIPSET manufacturer, in your case, nVidia. Here's the link to the nForce3 chipset drivers:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce3_winxp_5.11
Personally, I would do the BIOS update first. You said in the changelog for the BIOS, they fixed your USB problem. I'm not sure if MSI makes it easy for your to update your BIOS, but if they have an option to update within Live Update, then just do it. I could almost guarantee that it would work. I've done numerous updates to my BIOS and my mobo maker didn't make it easy.
Jam it back in, in the dark.
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