another "plugged in, not charging" dell - tried everything so far!

I have a Dell inspiron 1700;
I replace the battery and charger about 2 years ago, and it has since been working fine (before, this was a separate problem, where the battery was run down and charger broken).
For about a month, have been getting the "plugged in, not charging" sign with my battery icon in bottom right hand corner.
Also, on start up, it has the "A/C not compatible...." note. BUT, this charger has been working fine before now, with my laptop +battery.

I've tried taking the battery out; doing the BIOS thing; uninstalling under device manager &then scanning for new hardware when I've put battery back in. I've also checked the PA-number on the laptop is the same as the charger - both at PA-10.
I've looked at the inside of the charger cable (the pin bit) to see if it's gone wonky or fallen out - and it seems okay.
I don't really want to take my laptop apart because I won't be able to put it back together after ha!
Any ideas??? (except going to a computer-fixer-shop)? I don't know if I need to order a new cable (not A/C bit - just connector cable from laptop to A/C?
Any suggestions are most welcome!!

I recently acquired an Inspiron 1525 with no battery, charger or hard drive. Somehow, the Dells communicate with the charger. I have 2 HP chargers (AC adapters) with the same output voltage & power plug. The 1525 will function with the HP chargers, but won't charge the batteries. I would get the same startup notice as yours. You can turn this notice off in the BIOS, but don't.

If you hit F2 at power up, you can see the status in the BIOS without loading Windows. It will also tell you the wattage of the attached AC adapter. I suspect your adapter has partially failed.

The PA-10 is a 90W charger, mine is a PA-12 (65W). The bottom of your 1700 will tell you the charger requirements. A higher wattage (same volts, higher amps) will not hurt anything. You can buy PA-10 replacement chargers for around $20.

if I take the battery out and just have the charger, it still works.
think it's a "take to the computer doctor" problem?

I had this problem about 6 months ago. I tried another battery, another charger, another charger and battery and none of those combos worked. I used the computer (without the charger) until it died and then plugged it into the charger and noticed the icon was indicating that it was charging. The problem came back last night and I tried all the same things then I remembered what happened 6 months ago so I let the battery drain down as much as possible and plugged the charger back in and it worked again. I'd like to know if this works for anyone else.

So I bought a new battery, still coming up with same "plugged in, not charging" and the same warning screen on start up about "reseating the charger" - whatever this means....

Not sure what to do next? Any ideas?

Bump... anyone?