Can I multi-thread this?

I have the following scenario which works fine, however I wonder if I can improve the user experience further.
I have an asp button which is wrapped in a <a> link.  It acts as a link button but it actually works when you turn javascript off.  The html is like this - <a><input></input></a>.  When a user clicks the button, an event is raised and a new wwindow is opened which does something else.
The button event does a number of things itself,
update page control (multiple)

update sql table (multiple)

update an update panel on the page


In the above scenario the user has to wait to the end to see a page update.


I could however, do this,
update page control (multiple)
update an update panel on the page
update sql table (multiple)


In this scenario the page is updated, but might seem dead whilst the table updates are performed.& ...