Laptop charger acting odd.

TL DR

So I noticed a bit ago that my laptop's battery was low, even though it was plugged in.

The charger has a green LED on it that was not on, and wouldn't turn on if I changed outlets.

I went to do something else for a bit, and came back to see the LED on and the laptop charging.

I put the laptop on my lap and the computer went back into battery mode.

Even as I've been posting, bumping the wire (near the laptop, not on the outlet end) caused the LED to light up and the laptop to charge, but only for a second.

Any ideas as to a fix, or am I stuck buying a new charger?

Alpine

From my experience as a tech at Staples;

It's not the charger, it's the port on the laptop itself. I'm convinced of this when you say that jiggling the cord causes it to work for a second - it's making contact by chance.

IreneDAdler

Eh, the fact that the indicator light on the charger itself is going on and off makes me think it's the charger, because all the indicator lights I've seen reflect whether the charger is plugged in, not whether the laptop itself is receiving power. It could be the wiring starting to wear out, and that might be why bumping it causes it to light up. Is your laptop under warranty? Stuff like this is usually covered by that kind of stuff.

Sheep Have Wool

It depends. Does the LED on the charger typically light up when you plug it in, or only when the charger is actively connected to the notebook?

Typically LED's on AC adapters light when they're plugged in, not when they're actively charging. Yours may be different, but if this is the case, it's almost undoubtedly the adapter itself. Buy a new/warranty replace the adapter.

If your adapter has an LED that only lights when you're actively charging, it's probably the connection to the board itself. If this is the case, you have a few options, depending on your brand:

1) Warranty the laptop.
2) Re-solder the connector to the board. Depending on the make/model, this can be trivial to do or fairly difficult. You'll have to take the laptop apart, and I'd only recommend this if you've got some soldering experience. If you do, you can probably Google some disassembly instructions for your notebook and use them to get to the connector on the board. Usually all it takes is some reheating to reconnect it.
3) Some laptops have a seperate card type attachment that connects the charging board to the actual motherboard. This card has the connector, and can fairly easily be replaced - you can buy a new one on eBay or a laptop part store online.
4) Take the notebook in for repair. Be prepared for the tech to tell you that there's nothing they can do and that you need a new motherboard.