The PowerBook 3400c can be a rather unreliable laptop, due mainly to functions of time, along with damage from the notoriously leaky PRAM battery.
The PowerBook 3400c uses a 6-cell Varta battery pack to back up the PRAM settings for the laptop. The problem with this battery is that it uses Nickel Metal-Hydride chemistry, which is prone to leakage over time. As expected, this has become an all too common problem for the 3400c. What makes this all worse is that the battery is placed directly over the logic board, making it the first part to get hit. This makes buying one untested a pretty big gamble, with the odds of getting a working system rather low. If you have a 3400, the time is not to get that battery out, as they will all end up leaking, it is only a matter of time. These batteries made their way into a wide variety of mid 90s-early 2000s laptops, including those made by Dell and Toshiba. Check those too if you have them.
Much like the 5300 series, the PB 3400 uses a seperate Power board placed under the trackpad to regulate and control the power for the laptop. Without this board, the 3400 will not turn on, and it appears to be rather prone to failure. There doesn't seem to be one cause, sometimes a recap will get them working again, sometimes not. If you have a dead 3400 that has not had a battery leak, you should look to the power board first.
Much like other 1990s laptops (including those not made by Apple!), the PowerBook 3400 suffers from brittle plastic. Take all precautions necessary to prevent plastic cracking. Handle the laptop carefully while in use, and package it extremely well if you need to ship it. The brittle nature of the plastic also leads to broken display hinges. To prevent them from damage, avoid opening and closing the display as much as possible, and reinforce the plastic that the hinges screw into with epoxy or superglue. One way of avoiding hinge use is to store the laptop open, so that you don't need to open/shut the hinge each time you take the laptop out for use.
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