Laptop charger dies, if I plug it, when laptop is ON

Hello.

My laptop (Dell Vostro 3560) is having strange issue with its charger for quite some time.

If my laptop is ON, and I plug my charger into it, charger turns off. Charger's lights dim off, and is not charging my laptop. But if my laptop is OFF, I plug it in, and then turn my laptop ON, everything is fine, lights are glowing and laptop is charging. In situations, when charger dies, I have to plug it out of the wall, and back in, to fix it...

Since it works fine, when I plug it when my laptop is OFF, I am not so worried about spending tons of money to fix it, but I am curious to know, what do you guys think is the problem here.

If I made something not clear enought, ask me.

 

Thanks.

If under warranty - RMA it. Dont open it up etc. You'll just void the warranty.

But the first and easiest thing to try is another charger - any one of those universal chargers will do or If you can source another compatible Dell one to borrow for testing.

Once you eliminate the charger from being at fault it is then on to the charge port itself. There may be a short somewhere inside. Could be a 5 min job to hours of farting around. Only do this if:      a) unit is out of warranty   or    b) you are confident in doing a repair that may involve some soldering.

Best of luck champ.

I've got a large dell brick power supply and modified it for use with my 3D printer.  What you described happens exactly with my power supply, except remove "laptop" and put in printer.

I don't really know why, but I haven't bothered to look into it.