Is my 5100 Killing Power Bricks?

[j-bomb]

My Inspiron 5100 is probably nearing the end of its useful life. It's performed pretty well so far, but recently started having a problem. The battery wouldn't charge, and it wouldn't run off the adapter only. I thought it might be the battery, or the power jack, but after checking/fixing those, I managed to find another adapter to try out and it worked. So I ordered a new brick from ebay, and it came and everything worked fine for a couple of weeks.

Now it's not charging again. I left it running (plugged in) when I went out to breakfast last week, and when I came back an hour later or so, it was running on battery power. I jiggled the power supply plug and tried shutting down/restarting/etc. but I couldn't get it to run on just the adapter. The battery still has about an hour of time left in it, so I at least have enough to start it up and try things if there is anything to try.

I'm going to go back and try that other power supply again. Is it possible that my machine killed off my old (original) power brick, and then killed off this replacement one as well?

Symptoms:

Machine will not run on A/C adapter with battery out.
Machine will run on battery but will not charge battery if plugged in.
When adapter plug is inserted, "power" and "charge" lights blink once and then remain off.
Adapter's green light stays on steady when plugged into wall.

I need to figure this out soon or I'm going to give up and order a Thinkpad. I will need to eventually, but I'd rather not part with the $2k+ right this minute.

Thanks.

[Yoob@NBF]

You said you managed to find another adapter so I take it then you know someone with a compatible model Inspiron? Wha tyou should first do is test the adapters without plugging them into anything other than the wall socket and see if you see a solid green light. If no then clearly the chargers in question are done for if yes then you may have a larger problem to deal with. As far as getting chargers go I generally do not reccomend getting them from ebay simply because you cant get a 100% brandnew charger. My advice is to get a charger direct from dell this way if for some odd reason your notebook is in fact killing the adapter you can get your money back for the charger or keep getting it replaced. Also note charger replacement is covered under dells warranty if yours has not expired yet.

[j-bomb]

Thanks.

The power supply's green light does stay on solid. I will try to drop by that guy's shop with the adapter that worked before. I don't know if the one I got from ebay was brand new, though it looks very clean, but it did work for a couple of weeks and died randomly. This is why I'm worried that the computer may be done for.

And I'm sure the warranty is long gone by now.

[j-bomb]

Just to add to the confusion, my laptop is now charging. I figured if I left it plugged in long enough, maybe it would randomly decide to charge again. ???