Problems with Apple MBP 2011?

I've got a MBP early 2011, and I'm having some major issues. It's definitely been showing its age since I bought it, and in some pretty major ways.

I'm almost dead certain that the Mavericks OS caused my partition map to fail. Nothing a reformatting of the HD couldn't solve, but Apple essentially uploaded a fatal error for my model of computer. Noticed abysmal processing speed until HD failure

Battery life down to 40 minutes… Is this normal for a MBP of a little more than 3 years?

And today it just flat out died. I had a youtube video open, and "minecraft" on pause on a different screen. Watching the youtube, and the fan stopped and the screen went black. Suspected overheating because the fan was going pretty loud, but I have a ceiling fan going in this room and there's no way it should have overheated with two barely graphics intensive programs. Set it under the ceiling fan (fastest speed) and after 10 minutes still completely dead. Not able to start it up. No way this was lack of battery power, all signs indicate the computer is still at 100% battery. Any ideas what this might be?

Guest

Upgrade your ram to 8 GB. There are plenty on Amazon. You will notice a big improvement.

Secondly, let your battery deplete all the way and leave it dead overnight. In the morning, plug it back in and leave it charge till it reaches 100% without unplugging. This resets the battery stats and you can get an accurate reading.

Go to disk utility, click on Macintosh HD and do a "Repair System Permissions" this will repair many of the problems that occurs through upgrading to Mavericks.

I hope it helps. I udnerstanding how disappointing it is

Guest

Could be the battery problem. I know sometimes, it will show that battery is ok but it might be causing the issue. I don't think you have the right tool to open the battery. I would suggest to take it to a local mac repair centre for free evaluation.

mash