I use fedora core 4 kernel 2.6 and have installed the latest madwifi drivers. When I run DMESG all is well.
I configured my ifcfg.ath0 file to use dhcp and static configurations and I cannot get the card to see my Dlink 624 access point,even if I am right next to the access point. It did work one time when I ejected the card and then reinserted it but then when I rebooted it stopped working. I know the madwifi driver is flaky but what can be done to get it to work with stability. When I put in my Cisco aironet 350 series card it work great without any problems at all.Here is my ifcfg.ath0 file for the SMC 2336 card:

IPV6INIT=no
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=yes
GATEWAY=
TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=eth0
HWADDR=XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=
DHCP_HOSTNAME=
IPADDR=
DOMAIN=
ESSID=ZOR
CHANNEL=1
MODE=Managed
RATE='54 Mb/s'

What is going on!

In Network manager have you got it set to active it should say something like eth0 Active?

what do you mean by network manager. The nic automatically boots up and is seen by the kernel. I can be right next to the wireless AP and it still it will be seen. What could it be?