Netgear PCMCIA card w/strange error

lspci reports;
3:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212/AR5213 Multiprotocol MAC/baseband processor (rev 01)

logging to messages & dmesg reports;
ath5k phy1: noise floor calibration timeout (2412MHz)

and of course there is no joy connecting as a result. This Thinkpad R40 has been running fine w/Novell Linux desktop. How might we remedy this error?