In an effort to sweeten the pot, at least in the information sense, I am adding the following data, selected excerpts from the indicated commands, in the hope that someone will come up with an idea either for more information or to suggest a resolution of the problem.

lsmod

Module Size Used by
snd_hda_intel 295196 1
iwl3945 95080 0
snd_hwdep 13572 1 snd_hda_intel
mac80211 133388 1 iwl3945

lspci

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
06:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)

08:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation PRO/100 VE Network Connection (rev 01)

dmesg

iwl3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.1.17ks
iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2007 Intel Corporation
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:06:00.0[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:06:00.0 to 64
iwl3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:08:06.2[C] -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 21
iwl3945: Tunable channels: 11 802.11bg, 13 802.11a channels
phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-3945-rs'
warning: process `hwsetup' used the deprecated sysctl system call with 1.23.

Once again, thanks for taking a look at this.

GK