Have you tried the ASUS M3A78-T BIOS 0802 BIOS dated January 14, 2009 on ASUS' support site? it has this specific fix:
02. Fix the problem that the system may show boot fail message if ACC enabled.
ACC stands for Advanced Clock Calibration and would fall under the control of PowerNow-K8.
It may be a mixture of both kernel and BIOS issues, but I'd try the BIOS update first.
Have you tried the ASUS M3A78-T BIOS 0802 BIOS dated January 14, 2009 on ASUS' support site? it has this specific fix:
02. Fix the problem that the system may show boot fail message if ACC enabled.
ACC stands for Advanced Clock Calibration and would fall under the control of PowerNow-K8.
It may be a mixture of both kernel and BIOS issues, but I'd try the BIOS update first.