I'm having a laptop battery problem.
 

I don't use the laptop a whole lot anymore, but it's irritating when I do. It's a 2010 Dell Inspiron 14R (N4010) with the standard 6-cell battery. If I'm charging it for too long (such as if I let the battery die), it'll eventually heat right up to the point where I can't charge it anymore. Sometimes it'll even happen when I'm just running it off of AC power. If I unplug it and run it on battery, it'll appear to hold the temperature steady.

(this was not helped by my Googling which accidentally led me to a bunch of pages about what might happen if the battery overheats. =w= )

Turn off the laptop now.

Remove the battery.

Is this a recent thing, or have you always had it?

Check for signs of budging and/or faults in the construction of the battery. I don't think a battery is supposed to heat up significantly more than the laptop itself when it's just charging - the laptop should be drawing most, if not all, of the power from AC.

(Hmm... If temperatures go too high even at room temperature...)

...I can't believe I didn't think of that.

Anyway, it seems fine to my untrained eye, but a second opinion wouldn't hurt.

This is fine, right? (as far as really crappy pictures can go, at least)
Attachment 4911Attachment 4912

I only noticed it happening on Saturday, which I think is the first time since the fall that I've had to charge it from dead. It doesn't even really happen until it goes from dead up to about 80-90% either.

edit: Well. It took 15 minutes of being plugged in, asleep, and fully charged for it to go from a little over room temperature to having the magical flashing red charge light come on that says it's too hot to charge. Even though it WASN'T EVEN CHARGING.

It's probably the battery's age at this point. See if you can find a replacement battery (and I'm sure you'll also enjoy having a fresh battery)