I hope this is the correct section to be posting this. I am not new to issues with my 3 1/2 year old XPS (motherboard was replaced at 2 years). I have researched this problem, but haven't found one identical to mine.

A few days ago I turned my laptop on from sleep mode, and in less than 5 minutes I heard a "click/chirp" and turned off. I was unable to turn it back on. With the AC adapter plugged in, there was no "charging" indicator (which has been flashing red and blue for about a year). My brother took a look at it and was fooling with the connection between the cord and my computer. With some messing around with it he was able to get a "connection" and the charge indicator lit up. I had it on for about 2 minutes and it shut off again. I'm assuming the connection was broken again.

Since that day I haven't been able to "finagle" the cord to get a good connection to recreate the blinking "charge indicator". I have 2 identical Dell AC adapters, neither work for my XPS, but both work on another Dell laptop I own. The connection feel's a little loose (theres a little "play" when I wiggle it), but its not near loose enough to fall out on its own or anything.

Heres what else I know about my situation:

When the AC adapter is plugged into an outlet the green LED on the "adapter block" lights up. When I plug it into my computer it STAYS lit like normal.

My computer will not turn on with battery removed, running solely on AC power. (I've tried holding the power button for 30 secs, etc...)

With the battery in place I can hold down the power button, The charge indicator will flash red 3 times, then blue once, then a slow red flash every 2 seconds. Does the slow red blink indicate a low battery?

When I push the "charge indicator" button on my battery, 1 green LED lights up (low battery?)

 

Does this sound like a combination of a dead battery and poor AC connection to you? It seems to me like I'm essenially running my laptop with no battery, and as soon as the AC connection is lost it turns off.

... or could this be more serious?

Thanks in advance for any help.