Laptop Woes, discovered
I think that, despite my thoughts to the contrary, the logic board on this beast isn't yet due to fail.
I have confirmed that tilting the display can affect the screen output - cable being crimped by the case again, no doubt. I've also had good evidence that the hanging issues are actually HDD-related - I managed to catch a DMA timeout error on the console one time.
Of course, there's no way I'm replacing the HDD outright (unless someone has a decent 2.5" HDD for free...).
I've found a PPC LiveCD of Ubuntu 6.10, which I'm now running - less chance of a crash, I figure. My data is still there (and I have an up-to-date backup, wheee!) but it's frustrating to crash every time I move.
Might see if I can replace the HDD with a CF adapter and card - should be a nice fast boot if I do :). Not going to spend any real money fixing it though, replacement has been on the cards for a loong time.