The PowerBook G3 Kanga can be a rather unreliable laptop, due mainly to functions of time, along with damage from the notoriously leaky PRAM battery.
The PowerBook G3 Kanga 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 Kanga. 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 Kanga, the time is not to get that battery out, as they will all end up leaking, it is only a matter of time.
The Kanga uses a seperate Power board placed under the trackpad to regulate and control the power for the laptop. Without this board, the Kanga 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 Kanga 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 Kanga 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, reinforce the plastic that the hinges screw into with epoxy. 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. If you reinforce the standoffs though, it's fine to use the hinges.
The Kanga also added an additional metal support piece on each side where the hinges mount to the base of the laptop, which should in theory prevent them from breaking at the base.
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