My early 2013 rMBP 15" bit the dust this morning...

[Doc Shultz]

I had to spend a lot of money today. I have an important exam for school tomorrow, plus a lot of homework to finish up this morning, and as I was in the middle of typing a quick 3 page paper, by computer died on me. At first, it rebooted and acted normal, only to shut off again, and after that point, it hasn't booted up again. Because it's Sunday, and because I needed a reliable computer ASAP, I ended up going with a 2017 MBP replacement. Pretty bummed out about that dent my wallet just took, I was hoping to get through nursing school, purchase our first house, and get my wife a newer car before I was going to upgrade.

I think it's either the SSD, or its the logic board. I can't even get it to boot into recovery mode before it shuts down again. My question is, what would be the most cost effective way for me to repair it at this point? I am definitely willing to replace the components myself, but I don't want to spend multiple hundreds of dollars more to solve the problem.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

If you don't want to spend the money problem solving then let someone else do it. Take it to Apple and see what they say, although they'll probably just want to swap the logic board as they aren't going to faff with it for you. So see what they say, and then consider taking it to a local repair shop and asking them.

Could be something as simple as a faulty or loose cable, could be a catastrophic core component failure. If it is booting though it's a good sign, I'd bet just a HDD failure somewhere along the link, so try swapping it with something or external. Failing that could be heat related causing it to shutdown, which could be a faulty sensor. Remove the HDD and boot it, it obviously won't boot but if it doesn't immediately shutdown like you say then there's a pretty solid chance it's that causing it.