Old Thinkpad R40, slack 13.1

I replaced the trusty old aironet wireless card with a trendnet scanbus wireless card so I could secure my home wireless with wpa encryption. It uses the ath5k module, and the wireless is set up with wicd.

The issue is that if I stop browsing for about 2 minutes, the next time I start to browse, it will disconnect, then reconnect no problem. I don't know if this is supposed to be a feature, but it is sure annoying.

Is there a tweak somewhere to stop this? The other option would be to use ndiswrapper and use windows drivers, but I'd rather explore tweaking, if possible. If I have to use ndiswrapper, would I have to rmmod ath5k first, or would it be ok to use ndiswrapper directly?

In some fedora forums, one advised to remove the net manager and use wicd only to resolve a disconnect problem. Is this really advised?

Hi,

Do you notice any clues in the 'logs' that may help to track things down?

This is what happens after a few minutes of internet activity. Happens everytime. During set up, wicd is set up first, wired ethernet has never been touched. Any clues?