Thanks

Its been there for a while, how long are we talking? this is useful as
a new battery is over £70 and he will be upset if it does not fix the
problem..

It also has the flashing amber light problem.

I speculate that the battery has an "intelligent" chip which only
allows charging when it has talked to the mainboard, so if it is
drawing excess power then it explains a lot (dragging down the 5v and
12v rails and causing glitches)

-A