my ibooks are quite frankly driving me to the brink of what is left of my sanity

i have been busy for a week to try and get them online ( usinga direct cable modem line no routers or anything in between just a straight cable)

and not a bloody thing happens

via my imac G5 it works just perfectly but when i plug the cable in either ibook the whoel line goes dead

on the imac al i need to do is plug it in and let the connection go via dchp which configures it self correctly on the ibooks however i get a differnt ip adress that does not connect even when i put in my ip adress and subnetmask manually and i get confirmation of os x i am conencted to the internet not a damn thing happpens safari and os x update still time out

and quite frankly i am very close to introducing the ibooks to a very short very sharp flying lesson with an abrubt lethal ending

both books are running new installs of tiger 4.6