iBook G4 Deep Sleep

My coworker is having some problems with his iBook G4 and I (being the mac guy I am) volunteered to help set it straight. I have encountered a bit of a snag that seems quite strange to me. The problem is that when the computer boots and gets to the login screen, it goes into a deep sleep and can only be revived by removing the battery. It stays at the login screen for about 3 seconds before this happens. Unfortunately, I didn't know about this in advance so I don't have my usual supplies (OSX CD or a Firewire cable to go into target disk mode so I can poke around from my MBP). If the sleep problem were not strange enough, I cant boot into single user mode! It just keeps a black screen up. Verbose startup does the same thing. Has anybody here come across a problem like this before?

TIA

There is no open firmware password. It is running from the battery right now so I am thinking that is not it either. I brought a 10.4 install DVD but it wont boot. I select it in the DVD in the list of startup disks (holding option at startup). The screen goes gray and 2 min later it shuts down.

Update while I was writing this...

My coworker tells me that the iBook has suffered a series of falls at the hands of a small person (child). Hmmmm... previously omitted.... Although, if the hardware was broken, I would not expect it to really turn on at all.

mkrishnan said:

You've already pretty thoroughly reset PRAM/NVRAM/etc, right? That would've been my first guess.

Otherwise, hmmm...

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Yea, I have reset that- still no go.

mkrishnan said:

This is out of left field, but is there any possibility the little battery on the motherboard is dead? Our iBook G4s have one, right? That might explain the failure to persist on some warm reboot requests (e.g. why it can't remember what disk to start off of).

Click to expand...

I had a similar problem with my PowerbookG4. It did not have a pram battery (button battery), but a backup battery. It was enough to keep the laptop powered for 2min in sleep mode without the main battery in place. When it died, I had problems starting the laptop from the battery only. I would need to plug it in briefly, hit power and unplug it if I wanted to be wireless. Could it be something similar with this iBookG4?