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I am looking at an iBook G3 for a friend and both the Ethernet AND Airport seem to be dead. He said they were working recently though, and nothing occurred that would seem to be a direct cause of the problem.

When he gave it to me it had 10.2.6 installed. I don't know much about Macs, so I took his files off and installed 10.4. It still has the same issue. When I plug in a cable, ifconfig still says:

status: inactive

I have already reinstalled the OS and cleared the PRAM. Not really sure what else to try. Is there a definitive test to tell if the hardware is dead? Other thoughts?

I'm confused as to why the Ethernet AND Airport would die at the same time. I'd think they are separate circuits in this gimmick?

Thanks for the help, Tom

TomWilsonFL
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  • Anything interesting in *System Preferences » Network*? Like the connections being deactivated? – Daniel Beck Apr 17 '11 at 06:04
  • Nope. Under "Show: Network Port Configurations" all are listed and checked "On". Under "Show: Network Status", Airport and Internal Modem are listed (with red lights), but Built-in Ethernet is not. When I use ifconfig both en0 and en1 are shown, both say "status: inactive" even when the cable is plugged in. I've also tried manually setting the media type in the Built-in Ethernet "Ethernet" tab, didn't work. :\ – TomWilsonFL Apr 17 '11 at 17:16
  • Have you checked whether the cable is good? The port on the switch? Do you have network connectivity when you boot from the OS X setup DVD? (Don't remember whether you had access to a terminal or network settings back then, but try anyway) – Daniel Beck Apr 17 '11 at 17:34
  • I've used multiple cables, multiple switches, multiple 802.11b access points (but not a true "Airport" access point; don't have one). I'll have to boot up the DVD and see. Not sure if you can Terminal or not. – TomWilsonFL Apr 17 '11 at 17:42
  • Since it's a G3 I don't know for sure, but there might still be a bootable Linux distro available, such as Yellow Dog or Debian for PowerPC. You could try booting those and see whether the port works there. – Daniel Beck Apr 17 '11 at 17:44

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