This is the situation.
I've got a Sony Vaio laptop I've had since about 2 1/2 half years ago that's
-250 Gb Hard Drive
-3 GB of Ram
-2.8 GHZ processor
-Ubuntu 10.04

The problem I have is that for about 2 days my battery is inexplicably not working. The second you disconnect the power it shuts off. Right before this happened my Ubuntu was acting up a bit(wireless not working), though now it's working pretty well. The adapter, if moved the wrong way(rotated or anything), may occasionally stop working, though it's probably the computer, because my sister's adapter(for a similar computer that also works on my computer) has the same problem with mine.

If it's a hardware problem then it's a minimum of around 129.99$, plus repair costs, and that sucks. The worst part for me is the fact that I've got 2 essays due in 3 days, so I really want a reliable computer.

You guys are much better at computers than me, so any help would be appreciated.

 

Well, I'm thinking its a battery failing to hold a charge or a faulty AC adapter (Where it will not charge the battery, i've had similar problems ). Try booting the laptop with just the battery in, if the laptop indicates it recognizes the battery (Look for the battery icon blinking a bit) then it may just be a faulty AC adapter.

Also, i've heard that vaios have a BIOS option to check for battery faults (F6 during bootup or something). Might want to check that out.

You could also try using Windows as a last ditch try, although i doubt it would change anything.

 

Thanks for the responses. I'm gonna try them before I go to any kind of repair shop cause the only one near is 129.99$ minimum to diagnose.
Thanks for the help.