Late 2009 27" iMac boots but screen stays black..what's the cause?

When I power up my mac (iMac11,1) I get the familiar "bong" sound and the fans and drives start to spin, but the screen remains black and unresponsive. If I turn the computer on and off often enough I get the screen to light, and once it's on all is good, but as soon as I do a shutdown I have to go through the same process of turning the machine on and off until the screen lights.... anyone know what the cause is? Someone mentioned it might be a logic board failure...if that's the case could I replace it? and if I can replace it can I put a more recent model board in my comp? seeing as they are like $800 a piece Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
Steve
27" i5 imac
12gig ram
OS X Lion

Thanks for the response BGreg
I ran the Apple hardware test and came up with the same error twice, error code: 4MOT/4/40000003:HDD-1313 The last four digits changed but everything else was the same.
According to some other msg boards this error code has something to do with the fan on the logic board and a possible connection to the hard drive overheating due to the dying fan... The fan sounds fine and I can't see how that relates to my black screen but at least it's something. My mac is out of warranty so I'm going to attempt opening it and cleaning and or replacing the fan myself, possibly the hdd as well, it's a lot cheaper that getting a mobo replacement lol $800-$1500, I keep extensive backups of my data so I'm not too worried. Thanks for your input, I'll let you know how the repairs go.
Cheers,
Steve

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Note : The edit button wasn't there so I had to double post :/

Late 2009 27" iMac boots but screen stays black..what's the cause?

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