Inconsisten Atheros Wifi with Ubuntu

I have read several threads about the Atheros AR2413-related chipset
having problems with Linux, but I have never seen this particular problem
described: SOMETIMES my laptop boots just fine, and at other times it
fails to recognize the wifi chip: wifi%d: unable to attach hardware:
'Hardware revision not supported' (HAL status 13). When this happens, I
can reliably get Ubuntu to recognize the chip by booting into WinXP,
letting XP connect to the wireless network, then rebooting into Ubuntu.
Sometimes just rebooting Ubuntu gets it to work, but the XP boot works
every time.

My system is an Acer Aspire 3502wLCi laptop. wifi chipset: Atheros AR2413
802.11bg NIC (as reported by 'lshw') Ubuntu 8.04
madwifi, ath_pci 0.9.4, ath_hal 0.9.18.0

What would cause this erratic behavior? Was it the position of the stars
when I was born? Any advice would be most appreciated.

--
MarkA
Keeper of Things Put There Only Just The Night Before
About eight o'clock

MarkA wrote:

> I can reliably get Ubuntu to recognize the chip by booting into WinXP,
> letting XP connect to the wireless network, then rebooting into Ubuntu.

If you remove the power from the laptop and disconnect the battery, does it
work if you boot straight into Ubuntu?

--
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