Laptop Care:

Keep your laptop in pristine condition.
Use 2 clean soft rags.  Run the hot water tap to near scalding hot.  
Wet one rag with hot water. Squeeze the hot water from the rag so it is damp, 
NOT dripping with water otherwise you will kill your laptop!

Work quickly! While rag is still hot wipe the screen and keyboard.
Be gentle while wiping the delicate keys on the laptop keyboard.
Before wiped surfaces can dry, use the dry rag to dry the screen and keys.
Repeat above for the top cover and underneath.

The above procedure will make your laptop shine WITHOUT CHEMICALS!

Never place your laptop on a dusty surface because the fans underneath
will suck in dust.  Dust accumulation will cause laptop to over heat.
The sensors on the motherboard will trigger the laptop to automatically
shut down by itself, an attempt at self preservation.

An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.

If your laptop gets dusty then use a can of compressed air to blow out
the dust by spraying air on the heat sink at the side, near the fan underneath.
You may also spray air in the vent under the fan. 
Tilt the laptop on its side and spray air on the keyboard too.

If spraying air forms dust balls inside the fan propellers, preventing cooling,
disassembly of laptop may be necessary to remove dust properly.

Train the battery and it will give you long reliable life!
To train the battery you must observe two rules:

Rule number one:  Never recharge the battery until it has almost completely
discharged.  Windows will popup to warn you only 10% of battery charge remains.
When you receive this warning connect your laptop to AC power.

Rule number two:  Never interrupt the charging of the battery before it has fully charged.
A fully charged battery may remain connected to AC power.

Laptops and young children spell disaster!  Keep the cord supplying AC power out of the
path of a running child.

Laptops should have their own table.  Laptop workspace should never compete with food
and drink.

Do NOT put stress on the laptop power jack connected to laptop AC power cord. This jack
is delicate and expensive to replace.

Lastly close the lid of your laptop before leaving it to idle for hours. Closing the lid
puts the laptop to sleep, reducing wear and tear on your hard disk and helps prevent laptop
from over heating!

If you have no video display then connect the laptop to an external desktop screen.
If you get a normal display on the external screen then the fault lies with the laptop screen.
If you get no display on the external screen then there is a fault on the Motherboard.

Laptop screen replacement can cost anywhere from $150 - $250.
Repairs done to motherboard components cost about $120.