i have 2 nics in my system, eth0 and eth1. some how it thinks eth1 is the default nic and uses that to connect to the net. how do i make eth0 default so when the 2 nics are activated, it uses eth0 as default instead of the eth1 card? i'm using fc3 atm.

try your routing table

run from your command line #route
that will spit out some info,
mostlikely your default route is set to eth1

remove your default route and add the new derault route with the 'dev eth0' option

how do you save the routing table? it seems to work when i change the default to eth0, but when i restart the system or do a network restart, it goes back to eth1 being default.

i am not familiar with fc, but i am somewhat sure that there will be files which hold information for either all your nic's or a file per nic.
these files will look similar to the following (i assume you have dhcp setup on your network):
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

you will also fine a file in /etc which configures your dhcp client (dhclient.conf?) lookup man pages for this file. you should find options with which you can tell one of the devices to be the derault root and a lot more stuff is configureable with your dhcp client.

nbccbn,

If you're running Gnome, look for a Network graphical tool in the menubar. If I recall correctly, on FC3 it's in Applications->System Tools or something similar. You should be able to modify your network settings permanently using that tool. (I'm running FC4 now, so I'm working from memory when it comes to FC3... Sorry.)

The thing is, no matter if I enable eth1, it always makes it default instead of eth0. that's my problem. I want to make eth0 default and use that as my main connection. It doesn't let me do that for some reason.

are eth0 and eth1 on the same network? if so, this is going to continue to happen.