IBook Shuts Down at Gray Apple

I have a 12" iBook 700, 384mb RAM, panther. Everything fine on it, except the DC in jack is non-functional. I've been charging the battery externally and that's worked great until yesterday.
So, here's what happens:
• I hit POWER
• iBook powers up, I hear all the drives etc
• I see the gray apple for Approximately 5 seconds
• The iBook shuts down.
It actually reminds me of trying to boot with a dead battery (which mine is not)
Here's what I've tried:
Reset PRAM
Reset PMU (many many times, varying lengths)
Booting from OSX CD (OS 9, 10.2, 10.3)
Booting from FW hard drive
Pulled extra ram.
Swapped in alternate ram
All of these result in the shut down after 5 seconds.
If I boot with OPTION held I can see the available drives and let it sit like that till the cows come home. No shut down.
If I boot into Target Disk mode, it mounts and acts perfectly on the other mac.
BUT, if I boot with an OS 9 CD it gets all the way past the OS 9 screen before shut down, like 20-45 seconds.
And if I boot with an NON Mac OS (Ubuntu, or YD linux) it works just fine, no shut down. So I don't think it's the Logic Board, right?
I'm confused. Could this still be tied to the DC board? Maybe it's getting a signal that it has no battery power somehow? I tried disconnecting the board from the Logic board completely, but problem persists. Could just having the board missing cause this? I ordered a replacement for a minimal amount, just in case.
What else could it be? Could the MB ram have gone bad or something?
It doesn't seem to fit the motherboard video problem that used to be so popular. Any ideas?

I only just came across this thread, so I'm too late to the party to be of any help, I think.
But I've noted - on a variety of Macs from G3 PowerBooks onwards - that if a battery is too deeply discharged it may tell the system (..but I don't know which bit of the system; obviously a bit of system software..) that it cannot be charged. At that point the system closes down.
The DC input may also be notified that the battery is "unchargeable", and therefore some software control appears to fail to charge it.
It often happens - or has happened to me - that if the problem battery is put in a different Mac it may accept a bit of charge, at which point the "won't work" signal is revoked, and it will work OK in its usual device.
I've sometimes applied a charge directly to a recalcitrant battery from a desktop variable low voltage power supply (..you know: those boxes with knobs and an ammeter and voltmeter on the front..)
..and that's "kickstarted" the battery enough for it then to behave properly again.
Er, sorry not to have replied sooner..

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