[Durham] Slightly OT: temperamental power adaptor

[Nick]

Hi,

I'm the guy who was enthusiastic about meeting everyone a few months 
ago, and since actually moving to Durham I've totally failed to make 
it to any meetings. Sorry about that!

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had any advice regarding my 
laptop. It isn't directly Linux related, but it's close enough that 
hopefully you can forgive me.

My power adapter has recently started randomly turning off for a few 
hours. After much worried wiggling, turning on and off again, etc, 
it then will turn back on of its own accord. I wondered whether it 
was overheating, but it runs quite cool. Anybody have any advice 
(other than the obvious "buy a new one")? Has anybody taken a power 
adapter apart to ensure any loose connections are resoldered? I'm 
slightly wary of doing that, having had a bad encounter with taking 
apart a PC power supply in the past (don't ask!), but if it's likely 
to be a case of a loose wire, I'd rather fix it than buy a whole new 
one.

Thanks,

Nick

P.S. When I say the adapter 'turns off', I mean the LED goes off, 
and it stops providing power to the laptop.