Macbook Pro 15" Mid2014 2.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel corei7 continuously crashes after upgrade to Big Sur 11.1
The problems started with the OS upgrade. It has gotten so bad, I'm wondering about hardware issues now. I cannot put the computer to sleep in any shape or form. It takes several boot ups to get it to stabilize long enough to actually do some work on it. Once it is stable it can stay on and work fine for very long periods, even over night, but eventually it crashes again. Starts with the rainbow spin, and if I wait a few minutes, screen goes black even though the backlight and keyboard lights are on. I tried multiple first aids on the hard disk including the data sectors (no errors found), multiple resets of NVRAM and SMC, and 2 reinstalls of Big Sur to no avail. I also conducted pretty extensive memory and CPU tests from a bootable USB with no errors found.
All these make me think hardware wise the logic board is the only option remaining. Am correct? Is it possible the hard disk or RAM being the issue despite passing tests error free?
Never opened the computer, but I understand there is a display cable in there. Any possibility a damaged cable, or perhaps the video card (if there is a separate one), can cause craziness like this?
On the software front, is there anything I can do?
I'm thinking about a downgrade to Catalina at this point, although it's going to require quite a bit of effort to get all my stuff back, so want to check all boxes before I take that action.
Apple stores do not have any appointments, so taking it in does not seem to be an option.
Thank in advance.