Laptop in a coma, I know it's serious

[cyrano]

Appealing to the LJ hivemind for computer issues.
Tersa has graciously been loaning me her beater laptop, an iMac I've gotten a lot of use out of. Last night, with no precursor, the screen suddenly went blank/black while I was typing, and then went dead. I pushed a bunch of buttons, removed and replaced the battery, removed the power cord, and eventually got it to power up.
But not for long. Before I'd scouted out a flash drive to grab what little data I needed, the screen went black again, and then went dead.
Lather, rinse, repeat, and I'm fairly certain that each time it went out sooner. At one point, the blank screen had a single column of red pixels down the left half of the screen. I found out that if I moved quickly enough and held down the power button while the screen was still on/black, then it would shut down and could be restarted normally.

And I thought I'd check in to see if this sounded familiar to anybody. Comments that include the phrase "oh yeah, this is cheap and easy to fix" are especially welcome. (:

Comments

[cerulean-me.livejournal.com]

It sounds a bit like the logic board died... granted, I am not a real geek, but it sounds like what happened with my iBook.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Better than anything I've come up with on my own. (:

[cerulean-me.livejournal.com]

Sadly though, no easy fix. :(

Do you need a lap top for your trip?

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Probably not. I rarely *need* a laptop, it's just often convenient.

[fafnar.livejournal.com]

Could be the battery is dead dead dead.

Some devices funnel all the power through the battery, so if the battery no longer charges then the device just doesn't come up.

Take it by an Apple store and see if a new battery fixes it up?

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I had immediately discounted a dead battery, because the computer boots up and does show a screen briefly. (Usually around three minutes before the screen blanks.) But it won't hurt anything to check with a fresh battery.