4 year old laptop power issues...

Okay I discovered this forum from a thread from my search results.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/page-50946_2_50.html

And it pretty much sums up my problem.... I have a compaq r3000 series. I believe its a R3200.

But anyways the power for my laptops malfunctions. To narrow it down I found one user in that thread who has the exact same problem with his compaq presario R3000 series.

The problem is that when I have my computer on it shows that the battery is charging and typically is always at 100%. But every so often the lightning charge signal goes out or the plug in icon is gone and the laptop runs off its battery. When it does that, it doesn't last very long and is no way was at 100%. I always knew that the 3000 series didn't run off batteries well but mine just plain sucks.

Also sometimes a temporary remedy for this is if I just unplug and plug in my power jack from repeatedly until the lightning charge signal stays on/plugged in icon appears.

Now I concluded that this could be for a number of problems.

1. Power cord
2. Bad battery
3. faulty soldered pin on MOBO

I already took my whole laptop apart because I really wanted to fix it without really trying to do extensive tests to eliminate the battery/cord.

It could always be the cord thats the issue right now but according to the thread, those guys wasted their money replacing their cords.

So right now I really don't mind wasting money on replacing the pin on my motherboard because it was my first instinct as to what is wrong...

Can anyone chime in??? See any symptoms for me to not replace the pin and to not do any soldering work...

Also I don't like the idea of that third party thing to charge up my laptop... I just want it fixed. And I probably won't replace my motherboard as its just too old.

Thanks for your time.