How much RAM is in your iBooks? Are you running 10.4.3 or later? There was a bug with Airport on newer G4 iBooks having more than 1 GB RAM and running 10.4.0-10.4.2. The bug was fixed with 10.4.3. What does not fit your description, though: The bug could not be fixed by turning Airport on/off. After updating to 10.4.3 I never saw the problem again. But somehow my network config file was hosed, the one that stored my default Airport network. I had to manually delete it in the Terminal and then reenter the information in System Preferences. Unfortunately I cannot remember now which file that was. This link suggests that it is somewhere in /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/ <http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=2005093011343164> Björn