Trouble connecting to the internet via cable modem...

Ok, so my dad got me this iBook G3 off of his friend (barely used) and I'm having trouble connecting to the internet. I have a Motorola cable modem for my PC, but it just won't work when I try it with my iBook. I've spent hours reading over mac help and online tutorials, and just about all of them say I should be able to just plug in the modem via ethernet, make sure "Using DHCP" or something like that in the network settings, and then I should be set. It doesn't work though. Perhaps I need a new ethernet card? Any ideas as to why my cable modem won't work?

Also, every once in awhile my programs will just close on me and a pop up will say, "This program has unexpectedly closed" or something similar. It doesn't just happen occasionally, it happens a lot. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks!

on your internet thing, open system preferences, select your ethernet connection, double click it, in the tcp/ip tab, make sure it says using dhcp, in the ethernet tab, make sure it says configure automatically. as for your other problem, sounds like you dont have enough ram.
how much ram do you have? also have you ever repaired permissions on this ibook?
when you got it, did it already have lots of stuff on it? if so, you shoulda probably done a clean install of the os.

I'm almost positive my network settings are set like that, I'll double check later. And I actually have a lot of ram...I bought 512 mb of it about a month ago, so it's now up to 640 MB of it.

And as far as "ever repaired permissions?" I'm not sure what you mean, so I'll say no to that question haha.

And when I got it, all it had on it was the typical Mac stuff (iLife software, appleworks, etc.). The only new thing was a music editing program called "Reasons" and like 8 songs made from it, and that was it.

Welcome to the forums,

As far as your ibook, good, the Clamshell's are the strongest(as im told). As far as "repair permissions", click Finder, then in the Applications, go into utilities, then its Disk Utility, select your mac partition, then hit repair permissions. that should set you in the right direction. BTW my iBook is the same model and i only have 306mb ram and no app problems

Cheers, -J

after repairing permissions, be sure to restart your mac. and if the problems with apps persist, delete their preferences, if you dont know how to do so, let us know.

Alright, I'm repairing permissions right now. But back to the internet thing...I went to my network preferences, made sure "Built-in Ethernet" was checked and "Using DHCP" was selected, but you said go to the ethernet tab? well, I don't see an ethernet tab. I have tabs for "TCP/IP," "PPPoE," "AppleTalk," and "Proxies."

Also, while in my utilities folder, i found one that said, "Network Utility." Would it hurt to give that a try, or is that for something else?

Ok so I repaired permissions...a pop up came up saying it was done, so i clicked OK....the timer thing was on for like 5 minutes, so i forced quit it and restarted...opened "stickies" (considering that one always gives me problems) and it still quit. So I went and tried repairing permissions again, and right when it got done...guess what happend? "Disk Utility has unexpectedly quit."

Go figure.