I DID try it, in my Gateway laptop, as stated in the original post. Once the Intel drivers were loaded it worked fine.
I returned it for a refund. After the Gateway test, I assumed the wifi card was OK, and that it was a problem with the Acer laptop. Guess I'll stick with the factory card. It actually seems to work a little better once I uninstalled all the Atheros drivers and reinstalled them. Still not great though.
Thanks for your suggestions.