Malfunctioning Vaio

hey everyone. I'm posting this up for my dad, one of his essential work machines is having some serious problems, it's vital we resolve this issue soon.

here's all the info i can gather

laptop: Sony Vaio PCG-K86 (no idea on chipsets but i can post up an everest report if needed)

the problem is the laptop will spontaneously die at times when the charger is plugged in;

if the laptop is turned off it can be charged seemingly without issue

when the laptop is running on battery it has no problems

when the laptop is running on external power, it sometimes will just turn off. no blue screen, doesnt seem to be OS related. the thing just dies after a few minutes. eventually after having died a few times it seems to work while being plugged in, seemed like it could be related to a cold start.

the problem has become increasingly frequent. my dad told me it's been going on for the past few hours since he started work today and its pretty much unusable.

my dad would probably buy another machine before he sends this one into sony for repair/inspection as he cant be more than a day or two without it and the turnaround time is horrendous. he's ordering a new charger to see if that helps.

any ideas? suggestions? anything would be great.

 

Does the battery show as charged? Or is it hovering in the below 10% range?
What are his temperatures like? Check with HWmonitor ( http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php)
Is he using on a table, or on his lap?