Not a Hackintosh: ethernet on eMac

[MarinatedPasta]

So I finally got my first proper Mac, an old eMac G4. The only problem is I cant get Ethernet to work for the life of me. Because Apple support doesn't go as far back as Tiger, and hours of searching online hasn't led to a proper solution, I figure here, where people know an insane amount about the back-ends of OS X, would hopefully be my best bet.

I am plugging the eMac into a switch -> Router -> Modem. Every other device plugged into the switch works flawlessly.

The Ethernet cable and the port its in works for other computers running Linux and windows. The ethernet card is recognized in ifconfig and System Profiler. System Preferences>Network>Network Status is empty and I cant click on the Configure or Connect buttons. Switching from Network Status to Built-in Ethernet I have TCP/IP selected and Use DHCP for "Configure IPV4," but the ip address, subnet mask, and default gateway are all blank. Switching to manual and putting the info in has no effect. When I load up the Network Diagnostics tool, everything is failed.

Look to the images for further information, and any information you need I can supply. This was a gift from a family friend so I don't have the installation disk, or any other mac to try to repair the os, but every thing else on the device works fine.

Any tips, help, or information is highly appreciated!

 

[IcePiq]

Two ideas:

1. Try manually entering your IP connection information. You will need to choose an IP address for the machine (try an address similar to one used by another machine you have on the network, but with the first three numbers the same, e.g. if your windows PC is 192.168.1.14, then use 192.168.1.99). You will need to make sure that address isn't used by any other devices on your network. You will also need to manually enter the router address - get that from your PC. It probably ends in x.x.x.1. Use 255.255.255.0 for your subnet mask. Copy one of the DNS server addresses from your PC, or use 8.8.8.8 (Google's name server). If this works, then it is probably some failure of your router to provide DHCP (autoconfigure) information to your Mac.
2. Boot up with a Linux Live CD, and see if the ethernet works. That will help you determine if it is an OS X problem, or a hardware problem. Yellow Dog Linux was well-regarded for PPC.