Stavros Zanos's dashboard

As apparently is happening with many others, my AC adapter, out of the blue, will not charge the laptop's battery. Every time I turn the laptop on, I get a black screen with a message along the lines of "AC adapter not recognized, battery will not charge, etc.."

I did some searching on his problem, it turns out that it's quite common, and in some cases results/originates in malfunction of the motherboard. Is there some proper course of action in my case? Calling Tech support is an obvious option, but if all they can do is tell me that my warranty is expired and I need to buy a new motherboard (400+ dollars), I would rather save those 50 dollars.