"Plugged in, not charging"

Problem with the laptop in my sig. It's a bit over a year old, battery was working like new till yesterday. I noticed after plugging it in that night that it wasn't charging. Clicked the power icon in the tray and got the status message, "Plugged in, not charging."

Googled it and tried the listed solutions: delete the Control Method Battery driver and reboot, various permutations of removing the battery and unplugging the system for several hours, and that plus deleting the CMB driver.

The computer shuts off instantly when I unplug the AC power but runs fine with it so I don't think the power adapter is the problem. The battery was fine until yesterday and in Googling the problem I didn't see any mention of it being related to dead batteries so I doubt if that's it.

I'll be throwing in a spare hard drive with a fresh install of Win7 to see if that fixes it whenever I find the time. That would pretty much eliminate the possibility that it's a software problem since this system ran fine for the last year with a variety of Windows installs and hard drives.

Any other ideas? The warranty ran out a couple months ago and I assume any contracted repair work will be close to the $500 I paid for this machine.

Pop the battery out and back in to make sure it's properly seated.

Done several times, as mentioned above.

Seen/had it happen several times ...

Did the fresh OS on another HDD help?

Anyway things to check. If you can buy these parts new but make out you're unsure so you can return them if you want to ...

- Clean the contacts on the battery and the laptop. Check the contact pins on the laptop are aligned properly and firm.
- Try another battery, sometimes a faulty battery can be the cause.
- Try another charger, once repaired a laptop with the very same fault, would work off AC power but wouldnt charge, ended up being the charger.
- If all else fails, could be the power daughterboard/motherboard power distribution. I had the same fault on my old HP laptop. Wouldnt charge and only worked off AC, then stopped working off AC a year later. Managed to get a new one off insurance.

If it is a circuit fault on the motherboard, search ebay for parts or scrap your laptop and get a new one. It can be a pain in the a*se trying to solder parts or repair your own laptop .....

OK, tried fresh OS on two different hard drives, one with an install from my other laptop

I've never pulled the battery before this issue started and I'm pretty good about keeping my machines clean and healthy so I doubt if it's dirty contacts. They look clean and undamaged as far as I can tell. Windows detects the battery fine and notifies me as soon as I remove it so that's something at least.

I've done some minor laptop surgery before and you're right, it's an incredible hassle and I'm always ridiculously paranoid about breaking something since it's all cheap plastic and awkwardly designed, cramped guts. Feels like working on an early 90s micro PC with all the cramping. Bleh. We really need a solid DIY laptop market... not just one vendor selling absurdly overpriced chassis.

Gah... I really hope I don't have to replace this thing. No battery life is a dealbreaker for me.