and this note took like 5 tries to send

Open it up yoursrlf, if you're lucky you maybe able to fix it up without spending too kich on parts

Can you go into bios / recovery mode? Maybe a single format will help. If not, Open it up, maybe a re-connecting a socket/plug or a cleaning may help. Happened to me once as well on my macbook, turns out my charging and power management circuit had fried. Repair guy replaced the chips in 1 day, ...

That sounds like thinkpad x280 (?) deciding the battery is lying about it's health status... could it be?

It's a two handed melee weapon now

Entry-level chromebooks are like $200? and technically they run Linux...

How old was the laptop? What brand and model?