Weird battery behavior

Ladies and gents... I'm experiencing a weird laptop battery behavior.

First let me say that i've been out of the country for 6 months for work reasons.... and left my personal laptop at home since i do need it while i'm using work one... the personal laptop has been on my desk at home for 6 months (unplugged but battery in). make of the lappy is Toshiba and to be honest i dont use it that much... prior to my leave i could get about 2-5 hours of life out of the battery.....

now .... fast forward 6 months to now.... my battery no longer seems to work as such.

Laptop runs perfectly fine when AC power plugged in.... battery seems to charge however VERY slowly... think like <1% charge per hour.... i started charging this thing at noon yesterday (sunday) as of noon on monday its at 20%..... i used batterymon to check out what's up and while i see its capacity increasing (charge) the charge rate is 0.... when i unplug the AC the laptop shuts off immediately.... the laptop will not start off battery power

.... the charging light is lit up as if the battery was charging.


SOOO... my question is .... is this some sort of deep discharge condition of the battery? is there any tricks i can do to fix this? (i tried taking out the battery, unplugging ac and holding power button for 5 minutes... didnt work)

I dont think its my power adapter since the laptop runs fine on AC. like i said i dont use the laptop all that much and it was fine prior to me leaving it for 6 months.

... i'm not against buying a new battery but i'm against buying a new battery if its likely not the battery that's broken.... toshiba wants $139 CAD for a new battery which isn't exactly cheap... if that's the route i just wanna be somewhat confident that the batter is at fault.

This is what batterymon displays

Status: "Charging" (this said "N/A"... couple hours ago)
Manufacturer:
Device Name: PA3399U-2BAS/BRS
Serial #: N/A
Uniqueid: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Time Remaining: A/C Power
Battery Temperature: N/A
Date of Manufacture: N/A
Type of use: normal operation
rechargable: Yes
Chemistry: Lithium ION
Design Capacity: 26415 mWh (1761 mAh)
Full Charge Capacity: 26415 mWh (1761 mAh)
Current Capacity: 5160 mWh (344 mAh)
Alert Levels: W: 0/ L:0
Critical Bias: None
Charge Cycles: N/A
Voltage 15.00 Volts
Charge Rate: 0 mW


it seems that the battery is taking charge but not releasing it.... im really hoping its not the circuit boards on the laptop itself