Weird Charging Problem

I'm having a weird problem with my Aspire 4730Z. I've had a 12 cell battery for a year and a half now and was still getting around 4 hours of battery life out of it. The charger went bad and was replaced a few months ago. The new charger has worked fine and everything else worked fine up until last night. I was using the laptop until it lost its charge, then i put it to sleep and set it down for the night. The next morning I plug it into the charger, the battery light comes on, but when I turn on the computer it will only stay on for 30 seconds or so until it dies. Although the battery light comes on, it doesn't seem like its charging. The computer also won't run on wall power without a battery plugged in, although it used to. I have no reason to suspect the battery or charger are bad, and I opened up the computer to look at the ac and battery connections/checked continuity and everything looks to be fine. Not sure what else to look for. Any suggestions?

Cliffs:
1. Battery won't charge.
2. Computer won't run off of wall power without battery installed.
3. Battery was still had 4 hours of life.
4. Charger was recently replaced and seems to be fine.
5. Computer was opened and connections checked, seemed to be fine.

 

I know you believe your charger is in good condition, but by the sounds of your symptoms, my first instinct would be to put the multimeter on the charger. Check for the appropriate voltage and amperage, or try another charger.

You could also try to put a full charge into the battery while the laptop is powered off, then turn it on and see if it runs.

 

I went ahead and bought a new charger, but nothing has changed. The battery won't even charge with the laptop off. I guess the only other thing that could be wrong is the motherboard, or the battery.

 

Try wiggling the adapter around in the socket left, right, up, down etc, but do it slowly to see if the charge light comes on. This should tell you if it's merely a loose connection between the charging socket and the motherboard. There were a few batches of Aspire One's a year or so ago that came with charge sockets that went loose after time, my D250 was one of them. They either need to be reattached to the motherboard, or replaced entirely.

 

That's the weird thing, the charge light does come on. But for some reason it wont charge. I've had the thing apart and the charging port looked fine. I bought a new motherboard for pretty cheap and if that doesn't fix the problem I guess ill try a new battery.