HP 250 G5 will not power up without battery or charge battery while powered on

[kmrahe]

I picked up this unit used from my kids' school. It has 4GB RAM and a Core i3 CPU. They told me it has a new battery, and in fact when charged the battery seems to work fine. The problem is that the battery will only charge when the unit is powered down. Also, the unit will not power up on the AC adapter alone without a battery attached. I have tried all the tricks I could find, including uninstalling the AC adapter and battery drivers, and holding the power button down for a minute with the AC adapter and battery disconnected. The HP Support Assistant finds no updates for the BIOS or anything else that hasn't already been installed. According to the specs., this model can include a 45w AC adapter or a 65w. This one is a 45w. I wonder if that could be the difference, but then it doesn't make sense to me that a laptop would ever be shipped with an AC adapter was useful in no circumstance other than to charge the battery with the unit powered down. Should I suspect a bad AC adapter? The school wouldn't have noticed this issue, because their modus operandi was to have the kids always use them on battery, then plug them into the chargers when they were done. Thank you for any assistance.

[HoarseHorace]

I've had laptop "travel" chargers that have given me the same issues. The power brick just doesn't put out enough juice to run the laptop, so it works almost like a battery extender. Under heavy load, the battery would drain even while plugged in and it wouldn't charge while powered up. A higher Wattage charger might resolve that.