Laptop Battery

My wife’s laptop doesn’t react to having an latop AC adapter plugged in, but it can still run off of battery.I charge her battery in my laptop and all is well, but that gets old quick.Any ideas as to what could be causing this?

 Is this a new laptop or an older one? After two and a half years, my laptop’s AC adapter went bad. There are stress points at various points on an adapter. Go to a local retailer w/ a decent return policy and buy a universal power adapter. They usually come with a transformer, an AC plug, and another cable that goes to the computer. It should come with a variety of plugs for various laptop brands.

 Buy one (I use a Targus adapter) which is capable of putting out an equal or greater power output as the one your wife has. It should say it on the adapter itself. I don’t remember how I determined my laptop’s power requirements. I think I took it from the battery’s voltage and amperage stats.

 Anyways, if this doesn’t work, then you can rule out the AC adapter and figure out what to do next. But changes are that your AC adapter will fail sooner than the laptop’s motherboard power plug header.

 I can’t believe I didn’t mention this before, but no, it is not an AC adapter issue. I’ve tried 3 different AC adapters, none of which work. I have taken apart the laptop and it does not have any visible issues. (no burst capacitors, no pins missing, no burnt traces, etc.)

 My wife is having to use the backup laptop which is a mac, and since the mac only talks to obscure japanese cameras, and not 2 year old american printers, she is eagerly awaiting a working PC laptop.

Any more tips? I’ll check for firmware updates tonight and post back?But I’m still having issues, but I’ve noticed that if I press down on the laptop AC Adapter where it connects to the laptop, then the laptop gets power from the adapter. (not the wire, but the hard plastic portion, so I’m guessing it is a short or something on the power recepticle thing).So I’m just going to save up and ship it off to HP and let them send me a working laptop, whether that is the original one or a refurb, as long as it works, I’ll be happy.