Zbiggy..... You were absolutely right!!!
I bought an Ultra 6 port USB PCI card that uses a VIA VT82xxxx chipset and my problems are gone
NOBODY SHOULD BUY A NVIDIA BASED MOTHERBOARD!!! and shame on NVIDIA for not standing up and fixing the problem!! Like you, I used to think Nvidia was pretty good particularly when it came to Linux. But no longer! You are right; avoid Nvidia products based on poor support. Running a bulletin board is easy, fixing real problems is the test.