Strange noise and flashing lights -- can this be battery/power-related?

Question

I have had two occurrences of a very strange sound and never-before-seen flashing of a light on my TiBook. Here is what happened:
I recently got a new battery (a NewerTech Extend 4800) for my 3 year-old PowerBook. I carefully followed the directions that came with the battery and installed it, then plugged in the power adapter to charge it up. I then started the computer so I could see the battery’s progress. Upon start-up, a “whooo” sort of sound came out of the computer for a few moments and the little sleep indicator light flashed several times (as did the apple light on the back of the computer lid). Nothing appeared to be out of order and the computer started normally otherwise. I was able to monitor the battery’s progress and since everything seemed to work normally and no one I talked to seemed to think I’d damaged anything, I just used the computer normally for the next two weeks with no problems.
Then last night the computer just shut down all by itself – I did not put it to sleep and it is not set to go to sleep on its own (my power saving setting is only set to dim the screen), nor did I click “shut down.” I thought perhaps somehow the power cord had not been attached and the battery had run down, although the new battery has been warning me properly when the battery is getting low, so that doesn’t make sense. It would not wake, so I restarted it. Upon restart, the same noise and flashing light situation occurred again.
I called the company that sold me the battery and the tech guy’s suggestion there was to reset the PMU and he gave me an Apple article to instruct me on how to do that. I have done that, but there is no evidence that that has solved whatever the issue was. I am hoping that someone can identify the sound and lights pattern and advise me as to whether it is some more serious issue, or if it’s nothing to worry about. It has been suggested to me that it is possibly a power adaptor issue, but since I’ve run down and recharged the battery without incident several times in between the two occurrences, that doesn’t seem logical either. Is there a known signal a computer makes when there is some power/charging issue?
Thanks for any help you have or for at least posting if you have had a similar experience. So far, no one I’ve talked to has ever heard of this before.
15" Powerbook G4 (tiBook), 1 Ghz, 1 GB, Super Drive   Mac OS X (10.4.3)  

Answer 1

Hi ChloeB,
Your description of the "moaning" sounds at startup sounds like something I'm dealing with. I came across the following post by EWW in the "My Powerbook Won't Start Up". I recommend the link and wish to specifically credit EWW with the posting, as I found it helpful. The URL is
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=380101&tstart=0
Begin Pasted Posting
Hi, limberlingo, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
Power On Self-Test Beep Definition - Part 2 (Oct. 1999 and later Macs)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58442
1 beep = no RAM installed
2 beeps = incompatible RAM types
3 beeps = no good banks
4 beeps = no good boot images in the boot ROM (and/or bad sys config block)
5 beeps = processor is not usable
Your Powerbook is not detecting any good RAM at startup. This may indicate that your RAM (all of it — do you have one module or two installed?) has gone bad, or that it isn't seated properly. The first thing to try is reseating it: remove the module(s) and then reinsert it(them). Then try starting up again. If that doesn't do the trick, and you have only one RAM module, it's probably bad and will have to be replaced. A single RAM module having intermittent problems before failing completely (as it apparently has now) would account for all your problems.
If you have two modules, it's much less likely that both of them have failed or loosened in their slots simultaneously. Post back with results of your testing.
End of Pasted Post by EWW
There's another thread I found where one of the causes of a three-tone warning was found to be a pinched ribbon cable coming off the bottom of the trackpad. You can find that in the thread titled "Solution to Freezes Caused By Ribbon Cable" - - the information provided by Marc Posner, Anthony Brade and others.
The URL is
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=228678
Hope this helps.
Paratus