ibook safari problem

safari in my ibook g4 does not load up any pages and neither does explorer, in addition opening the help in finder is way too slow. its seems like everything is just working too slow.
ironically, skype is working fine which is an indication that my internet connection is working.

any suggestions will be deeply appreciated!

Check your internet speed real quick for us: http://nyc.speakeasy.net/

What happens when you try to load a page in Safari? Does it immediately give an error message, or time out, or what?

When I opened up my new iBook, it recognised my wireless connection and router immediately.

I launched Safari... it could not find any websites...

After over an hour on the phone to Belkin (router provider) and having established that the router WAS still online (my old PC was online too, if more proof were needed) we launched IE and it found every site I typed in...

So, launched Safari once more and - presto! - worked perfectly.

Since then, Safari has worked without a problem... but I can't imagine for the life of me WHY it just would not word, full stop, when it was launched for the first time.

All I can suggest is the PC standby... if it doesn't work and there is absolutely no reason why not, turn it all off and start again...

Computers are like people - irrational!