I'm having an issue with an Alienware M17x r4. My daughter was in the middle of playing a PC game and it just turned off. Prior to it turning off she said her battery was getting ready to die but she had a few minutes of life yet. Initially she thought it was just the battery so she plugged it in and we got nothing. I noticed that the green light on the power cord was not illuminated so I unplugged the cord and plugged it in. The light went on and then it would slowly die. I purchased a new charger and plugged it in. The blue light is illuminated until I plug it into the computer. The only way to get the light back on is to unplug it from the wall and plug it back in. The light stays illuminated as long as I don't plug it into the laptop. I read about this on another site. Someone said it was the motherboard. Is this true?  

Unfortunately, it's my daughter's laptop so if it was doing something funny in the days leading up to this, she didn't say. I do recall the fan getting extremely loud the other night (which was a first). The laptop was on but she wasn't using it at the time. She used it again the night before it stopped working and said that happened again. I checked the fans to see if they were dirty and they weren't too bad. I cleaned them anyway but am not sure if this really solved the fan issue until I can get it back on. 

If it's not the mother board, what else should I check before I pay big bucks to fix? I purchased it refurbished almost 2 years ago for about $1300. Just not sure if it's worth fixing or not but I'd really hate to buy another one if I don't have to. 

I tried troubleshooting and looked for a similar issue here before posting but couldn't find one. Sorry if this is a duplicate question.

Thanks for your help!!