Gateway laptop battery not charging

[Jesusfrk611]

I've owned this Gateway MC78 laptop since I bought it new in Nov 2009. I generally keep it plugged in and just use it while I'm laying in bed and every now and then unplug it and take it with me somewhere. Normally when it is charging the battery it flashes an orange light. I noticed this night was red a couple weeks ago and checked the battery status in Windows. It said plugged in/not charging. I pulled out the battery and put it back in. Starts charging. Later I notice it's red again and not charging. Repeat and it does the same thing. I unplugged it from the AC and it aid it had 1% left, but I left it sit there a little while and it never died. I just lived with it awhile. Today I decided to try and blow on the contacts for the battery (like you might do with an old NES game). Magically it starts charging and I unplug the AC and it says it has 36% left. I let it sit there awhile like that and it keeps working. Next time I check it it's red again... I was thinking battery was bad, but I don't really know what a bad battery would do. I've read that it's a Windows thing and you uninstall and reinstall the battery hardware, but I tried that to no avail. Could the motherboard be going out at least for the battery part?

 

[Celegorm]

I've seen both the motherboard and the battery be the cause of the behavior you are describing.

I know HP has some battery testing utilities to test the cause of this, I'd check to see if Gateway has one as well.