So, I have some laptop problems (MSI) and I read from previous posts that some of the IT genuises here on EF might be able to help me solve them for free or for a reasonable price.
Basically, yesterday my laptop gave me the message 'plugged in, not charging (battery)', which means that if I remove the charger plug the laptop simply turns itself off. I tried to fix this problem by following some suggestions online (uninstalling then reinstalling some drivers). It did not help, and when I restarted my computer I got the message 'no audio output device is installed', so now I have neither battery nor audio. An old problem which I have is also that the laptop won't read my in-built camera anymore, and I'm sure it's not a hardware problem as occasionally I have an image for 1 second and then it crashed. I am also quite sure that the battery itself is ok as this happened overnight.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Denise

Sounds like you have a cooling problem inside and a dead battery.
How old is the laptop ? Does the battery get warm when plugged into the mains ?

Go to the laptop vendors website and reload all the default/supplied drivers. If you have a backup of your data, and if you dont, make one now, see if you can reload the OS from the recovery partition.

MSI laptops generally/broadly/are reputed to last for at most 2 years before hardware failures set in...

how old is your laptop?
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html download this and see what it says about your battery

your camera will be a drivers problem, go to MSI and ensure you have the latest drivers for your chipset and camera. Also consider visiting www.notebookreview.com and going to their forums where they will have an MSI subforum where you can get good info.

So, to answer your questions. Yes, my laptop is a bit more than 2 years old, and it overheats quite badly...
Now, I am not a computer expert at all, so I doubt I can pull off any complicated installing/reinstalling procedure.

Do you think this is fixable or should I just get another one? Of course, I'd much rather fix it and not have to pay for a new one, but I'm looking for honest advice, so go ahead and let me in on the horrible truth...

Replace the battery.
Hoover/vacuum all vents on the laptop and the keyboard. Thoroughly.
Avoid using a laptop on your lap top If you do, invest in a cooling tray. Laptop cooling with modern GPUs and CPUs is a real issue, think ventilation, and cool surfaces... Always think dust-free. Consider your usage, maybe a tablet PC would suffice, else switch to a desktop if you are running games and Facebook Flash apps. If you really need a reliable laptop, IBM, Toshiba, Sony.... You get what you pay for in the laptop world.

Is the fan noisy ? It could be clogged up with dust.
Trouble is, you can get a new shiny one for the price a repairer is going to charge you...

As UtH says the cooling tray works wonders.
My laptop had a heating issue and a dead battery.
As a temporary fix, I got a cooling tray and took out the battery.

Hey, very nice of people to answer these questions !!

Thanks for all the suggestions, and yes, it's lovely that people take some time out of their lives to answer.

Funnily enough, this was not a cheap laptop when I bought it, so it was just a question of me being a computer-ignorant person. At the time, I opted for an MSI laptop because it was the only 12 inch one available at my favourite computer store...and I didn't know that MSIs were of such poor quality...