Appliance karma has not been in my favour recently. Tricky situation with my fridge earlier, whilst my laptop keeled over a week ago. Nothing grand guignol, no sparks, just gently faded away. I've brought it back to life time after time, but even my Lazarus like ways have an elastic limit. What I've been doing I know now was little more than triage; patch the fallen soldier up, make sure he's steady-ish on his feet, then throw a weary, ailing body back over the parapet. Can't go on anymore. It needs fundamental attention, and now I know what after asking a relative: a new battery. It's a good, hard-working (and hard-wearing too) laptop; time for me to be a responsible owner.