Err, if it's coming up w/ that MAC then it's not finding and attaching right to the OTP/EEPROM calibration information. That's the big red flag that it in general won't work correctly.
Can you provide the rest of the ath_hal messages? I'd like to see what it's saying during boot around it checking the EEPROM/OTP contents. It's possible there's some work around required for this NIC.
