Toshiba A105-4094: new charger, new DC jack, still won't charge... new motherboard?

i'm afraid that my old crappy toshiba has finally kicked the bucket...

the battery hasn't held a charge for about a year, so i always had it plugged in. Starting about the same time that i noticed the battery went out, the charger started acting up. It would all of a sudden not charge and even when i wiggled every part of the cord including where it connects to the computer, the charging light would not even flash on. As weird as it sounds i used to have to physically drop the charger on the ground or hit it with something to make it charge again... i know, weird. but its the only thing that would work, so i went on backhanding my charger for about a year.

needless to say one day the charger wouldn't charge and no matter how many times i dropped or hit it, the light wouldn't even flash. so i bought a new universal charger, plugged it in, but it still wouldnt charge. the only time the light would flash was when i unplugged the new charger. not if i wiggled the connection, not when i plugged it in, only when i unplugged it. and it would only flash for half a second.

so i replaced the dc jack, but it is the exact same as it was before i replaced it. the guy at geek squad said if i replaced the jack, that it was probably something on the motherboard that died and i would need to replace the whole thing.

So, sorry for the lengthy explanation, but has anyone else had an experience like this with their laptop? i know these notebooks have a lot of power problems, but i just put a new DC jack on. and i remember seeing something about a BIOS upgrade, but i can't even turn the damn thing on..

i've avoided sending it in because i would rather not lose money on a nonrefundable payment just to find out that im better off buying a new computer anyways...


...and whats with having to drop/hit the charger? i dont get it...

thanks for the replies guys. yea, ive read through that site before, but as i said before, unfortunately i cant try the BIOS upgrade because i cant even turn my computer on to download it. i think ghn is right, something gone bad on the motherboard is really the only explanation i can think of.

although i just checked and my original chargers output was 15V @ 5A, while the new universal charger's output is 16V @ 4A. Could this small difference really cause my computer not to charge?

this one looks right
http://www.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=6634160

it says the output current is 6A at the top, but 5A in the description

guess i'll order it and see what happens

the DC jack i replaced it with was brand new

but APPARENTLY universal charger does not mean universal charger. The charger that the people at best buy said was "perfect for my computer" i guess doesn't actually work with mine even though the jack fits perfectly. Which is kind of weird, i'm not really sure why it wouldn't work.

but thankfully, my poor opinion of best buy led me to seek at least one more opinion before i threw away my computer, so i went to batteriesplus where they had my specific battery and specific charger and tested them both out for me. so yea, all i needed was a new battery charger that was specific to my computer.

so in summary:
-universal chargers suck
-best buy sucks
-i blame this whole fiasco on whoever gave me those stupid best buy gift cards (which i have again from returning the universal charger )

yea i thought if the voltage was wrong it wouldn't work, and the current would just effect the speed at what it charged. but i asked the geniuses at geek squad (at best buy) and they said it would still work with wrong voltage AND wrong amperage, just not as effectively.... looks like someone needs to send them back to geek school

interesting. the universal one i bought worked for my roomates computer which is a dell but not for my toshiba, i guess its just hit or miss with those things