My First Mac has a Problem!!!

Hi,

I'm a recent switcher having just received my first 24" iMac yesterday and am extremely happy with it except .... (gasp) there's a problem.

When I plug my ethernet cable into the iMac, the system doesn't recognize that it's there. In the Network Preferences panel (or whatever its called, i only got to play around with it for 3 hrs yesterday) its says "Status: Ethernet Cable not connected". So then i go to System Profiler and under Network, there is no Ethernet (should there be?).

Anyway i was hoping to get some help as i have just jumped ship from XP and although I have done my research on Macs, I never recall coming up against such a problem mentioned in these forums.

Could this be a hardware problem? I would hate for this to ruin my first Mac experience.

Thanks in advance for any help at all.

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

I'll have a look at it when i get home tonight but shouldn't this box be already checked in the first place? I have just taken it out of the box so shouldn't it just work? Or maybe i was being a noob and selected some wrong setting when i set it up as i quickly wanted to start using my new mac.

 

Shouldn't my ethernet port show up in System Profiler though, cause right now it doesn't. or does checking the ethernet box is network port configurations put it there?

...

And yes I support Arsenal from half way around the world.