Power Adaptor, Battery or left I/O board Going Out?

Question

This is driving me crazy, Im slowly losing power..
I have a MBP 17 That I purchased in mid January from Apple directly.
Battery is no longer Charging, The Light on The Magsafe light is very Dim but shows Green, not visible unless the adaptor is covered or in a dark room.
This started seven days ago. At first I was able to charge but it has progressively gotten worse. Four days ago the battery information stopped showing if the battery was charging. But Looking at the Charge remaining Battery information in System Profiler showed it was slowly charging back up.. Now It is slowly Using the battery while Plugged in, As in about 1% per hour. With the Better Energy Savings set. Even with the MBP off It will not charge the Battery...
Light On the Adaptor will not go off, even when the adaptor is unplugged from the MPB. Light will only go out when unplugged from the wall.
I plan to run Hardware test when I get back home some time early next week.
Steps I have taken.
Cleaned Receptor for the Magsafe adaptor.
Checked to make sure no Pins were stuck, bent or missing.
Tried Both the Plug adaptors,
Tried different wall outlets - My House, My Friends House, at the local Coffee Shop.. No change
Reset the PRAM and NVRAM
Reset SMC
Thank you for your time.
Here is the Battery information from System Profiler.
Battery Information:
Model Information:
Serial Number: SMP-ASMB014-378e-838
Manufacturer: SMP
Device name: ASMB014
Pack Lot Code: 0002
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0110
Hardware Revision: 0500
Cell Revision: 0102
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 5897
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 6140
Health Information:
Cycle count: 21
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12420
System Power Settings:
AC Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 5
Automatic Restart On Power Loss: No
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Wake On LAN: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
Battery Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 5
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 1
Wake On AC Change: No
Wake On Clamshell Open: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes
Reduce Brightness: Yes
Hardware Configuration:
UPS Installed: No
AC Charger Information:
Connected: Yes
Charging: No
Message was edited by: Justin TaxisGraphis

Answer 1

When you live outside of the United States, it can be difficult to obtain the excellent service that we in the US enjoy. I don't know who you contacted in Chile or in the US since I do not see a support site for Chile--only Brazil. But I'll give you the page for contacting Apple for Support and Service:
http://www.apple.com/support/contact/phone_contacts.html
If the problem first appeared after 13 months, then you are out of the 1 year warranty period for the computer. However, the battery warranty may still be in effect since that was extended. More about that below.
When you call Apple with unresolved issues, you may wish to ask for Apple Customer Relations. They are an upper tier whose mission is to try and solve problems so that Apple customers are happy.
Also, I am wondering about the diagnosis you received and if you might want to look for a second opinion. When there are charging problems such as you describe, in general you want to look at the battery, the power adaptor (charger), or the left I/O Board. If one or more of these are malfunctioning, you can get charging problems. If your computer is working while plugged into the power adaptor without other issues, I would not expect there to be a problem with the logic board. Sometimes if someone does not know what is wrong, they will diagnose the logic board. But I would be very skeptical of this diagnosis until other possibilities are eliminated.
The first thing to do is to reset the SMC:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411?viewlocale=en_US
The next thing to check is to see if your battery might be covered by the following article. If it is, you should be able to get a free replacement from Apple. The article will also help you to recognize the characteristics of a malfunctioning battery.
http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/
Since you can apparently run your Mac from the Power Adaptor alone, it would argue that the adaptor and the left I/O Board are both working to some extent.
You might check your battery characteristics in the System Profiler and compare them to what the OP posted. If you have under 300 cycles and battery health of "fair" or worse, then your problem could well just be the battery. If so, it would be a far less expensive fix than a new logic board, even if you have to buy a new one.
Do you happen to have any friends with the same MBP? If so, see if you can try their power adaptor and then their battery. Swapping out your battery and power adaptor with ones that are known to be good will go a long ways towards isolating the problem. If your problem persists with a known good battery and a known good power adaptor, then you may be looking at a new left I/O Board, which is much less expensive than a logic board.
Good luck!