Hello Danny,
I'm so pleased and relieved to hear you're back on track..!
Re your laptop, I know exactly what you mean. My trusty 7 year old XP lappy has the same problem! I need to twiddle the the power plug to get the thing to charge and lately the twiddling required has increased dramatically and become tiresome.
Cunningly, I thought I'd just hard wire the charging cable until I realized half way through the dismantling process the work involved to get the required access to do so. Like you, the time has come to put it to pasture...
Amazingly the device still works minus about 17 screws I didn't replace!
Cheers
Octane