Comment 98 for bug 300693

Only difference I note from that is that you're running the 32-bit kernel. Any chance you could give 64-bit a shot?

Just out of curiosity, here's the first few lines from modinfo on the module I'm using:

$ modinfo ath5k
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.32-02063203-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath5k/ath5k.ko
version: 0.6.0 (EXPERIMENTAL)
license: Dual BSD/GPL
description: Support for 5xxx series of Atheros 802.11 wireless LAN cards.
author: Nick Kossifidis
author: Jiri Slaby
srcversion: 4ADD98F13F26521B1FE72FB

Also, I don't even have the ath_pci module on my system. I may be that once the module has been loaded against the hardware a full power cycle is needed to properly reset it (pure speculation on my part).