OpenSUSE Wireless :: Strange WiFi Behavior Breaks Connection Repeatedly

I have recently upgraded to 11.4 and also had to renew an AP (HP ProCurve 10ag). This was several years old but replaced an identical model which had been working well until recently. I thought it would be appropriate to flash newer firmware as the device four releases behind the times. The access point serves partner's XP laptop and my openSUSE 11.4 laptop and after flashing the firmware both machines would make a connection and then break and remake, to the extent that the openSUSE machine became unusable. I thought it was an encryption problem and spent hours changing the AP and Client setups to no avail

After reading a thread here I checked out dmesg and this is what I found:-
[78.639247] wlan0: authenticate with 00:1d:b3:4b:ae:14 (try 1)
[78.640804] wlan0: authenticated
[78.642507] wlan0: associate with 00:1d:b3:4b:ae:14 (try 1)
[78.651195] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:1d:b3:4b:ae:14 (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=1)
[78.651200] wlan0: associated
[78.652222] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
[78.652283] cfg80211: Calling CRDA for country: DE
[78.674378] cfg80211: Regulatory domain changed to country: DE .....
This went on and on.