Fans & hard drive spin, no start up tone or display... help?

I just sold my old G4 tower on ebay, and the buyer tells me there's no start up tone or anything on his monitor, but the hard drive spins and so do the fans. The CD drawer opens but holding "c" and booting from the software disk doesn't work. He's tried resetting the pram, pressing the cuda switch and removing the battery. I of course made sure the computer ran before I shipped it, and in fact this computer has never given me any problems whatsoever. Does anyone have suggestions for what to do from here? Or even a guess as to what happened... I'm confused because there must have been some damage during shipping, but the box was fine and the computer was fine inside as well. On top of that, I'd expect some kind of an impact to affect moving parts like the hard drive, but that spins with no problems, and if it was just a hard drive problem booting from the software disk should work.

Hi, Alex, and welcome to the Discussions!
Any chance that the new Mac owner might join the Discussions and get an independent review and advice from the Members? We'd be happy to help him try to get up and running, as long as it's kept independent from this particular topic (since this really isn't a place for a potential buyer-seller dispute...)
What model Mac are we referring to here?
As previously referred to, the startup memory settings are commonly lost when one has a weak, dead, or defective battery and the Mac is then disconnected from an AC power source for a period of time. Oftentimes, the Mac can be restarted by removing the battery completely, doing a PMU reset, hooking up the power cord, and restarting with the battery removed. This might confirm that the Mac is indeed okay, perhaps maybe just needing a new battery (which he can test with a voltmeter, per Texas Mac Man's Tutorial).
You didn't mention whether or not the owner is using your original monitor, mouse and keyboard. This could be pertinent information in troubleshooting this, if the PMU reset/battery doesn't correct things.
Gary

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