And let me also ask this: my 5300c had a dead PRAM battery. It usually starts fine.

Initially, I thought I had noticed that it would not start at all without the dead battery connected. I removed the dead, corrosive PRAM battery from the 3400c and have a new one. The new one may be uncharged. I also replaced its two prong connector with the original 3 prong (red wire on the left). So on another long shot, the whining isn't the power board trying to charge the battery and the laptop isn't not starting because of the PRAM battery... or I didn't put the wires in correctly also?

I can't find the posts you're referring to, Macdrone.