Laptop won't run without battery?

[gary727]

Hi.  I have a Toshiba Satellite A205-S5000 laptop computer.  I bought it as a refurb from buy.com in Oct of 2008.  I had to purchase a new power source for it about 6 months ago.  This has worked out just fine.  However, in the last couple of weeks, I have been having some problems.  Whenever the power source is plugged in, it shows the blue light on the laptop that it is receiving power, and the red battery light indicates that the battery is dead.  So, I was able to simply remove the laptop battery, and then boot up the laptop with no problems.  But now, I cannot get the computer to boot up without the battery.  I put the battery back in, which has very little charge on it, and it will boot up.  The computer shows that it is charging the battery, AND that it is running from electrical power, but the battery keeps losing it's power, and then the laptop shuts down. 

I thought it was possible to run a laptop without a battery, and I have done so successfully until just recently.  I've been thinking about purchasing a new battery, and possibly even a new power source (again), but wanted to check here first.

Thank you so much for your time in reading this and replying.

[cintari]

Have you bent the chord in any way recently?
Does the voltage on the chord match the voltage of the computer and/or battery?
I'm guesing from what youre saying that the power chord itself is messed up. It may have some issues or could flat out be unable to transfer power to your computer fast enough. My suggestion, get a new power chord, and simply charge your computer while its off until the chord arrives.

[gary727]

I will try that.  Thank you.