PB G3 333 - Continuously Beeps - Won't Start-up

Question

As the subject says - I push the on-off button, I hear the Mac start-up sound, the hard drive starts to whir, then a continuous beeping starts. Not just 1 or 2 or 4 beeps - but a continuous beeeep, beeeep, beeep, beeep ... The screen is black and nothing else happens.. The beeping continues until I pull out the battery (no problem there) and the power supply.
I have tried removing and swapping the RAM chips - no change.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

terry,
I am unfamiliar with that symptom. Here are the POST tests for your Lombard:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58183
What is interesting is if it were in fact one of the above, you would not hear the normal startup chime.
Since I don't know what the answer is, I would try the basics:
- disconnect any and all peripherals and remove the optical drive from the media bay;
- reset the power manager and PRAM:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
- if still a problem, remove the HD and see if it will start to the flashing '?'; if so, replace the optical drive and see if it will boot to a CD.