Cannot See Wireless Access Point

Hello,

I cannot see my 802.11 wireless access point. Well, actually I can see it, but my laptop cannot. I have a Compaq F762NR laptop with an Atheros wireless card, and running the madwifi driver that was recommended by several people and is on the madwifi site for this card. At first I had the driver and wireless devices did not show up when using ifconfig. But then when I loaded the correct driver I could see it.

I can see the devices (ath0 and wifi0) but it does not see any signal.
I know the radio works because I dual boot with Vista, and it works fine under Vista.

Here is some info :
Any hints ?
Thank you !

ath0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity=1/1
Retryff RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality=0/70 Signal level=-256 dBm Noise level=-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

priceless:/home/jprice # ifconfig
ath0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1F:3A:8E:98:1D
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1E:68:43:89:35
inet addr:192.168.1.13 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2010 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1889 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2145356 (2.0 Mb) TX bytes:322403 (314.8 Kb)
Interrupt:209 Base address:0xa000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:57 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:57 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:4048 (3.9 Kb) TX bytes:4048 (3.9 Kb)

wifi0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-1F-3A-8E-98-1D-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:632 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:199
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:29072 (28.3 Kb)
Interrupt:233

priceless:/home/jprice # iwconfig ath0 essid any mode managed txpower 15
priceless:/home/jprice # iwconfig ath0 key off
priceless:/home/jprice # ifconfig eth0
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1E:68:43:89:35
inet addr:192.168.1.13 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:3 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1240 (1.2 Kb) TX bytes:692 (692.0 B)
Interrupt:209 Base address:0xa000

Hello jprice
Have you tried to configure the card in yast --> network devices --> network cards? If not then have a go at that

Here's some pictures: Link another Link

Cheers
Swerdna

1) disconnect wired network first
2) try iwlist scan next