How To Take Care Of Your Laptop Computer

A laptop computer like a baby that mean a very highly evolved, extremely intelligent, and almost infinitely capable infant, but a baby nevertheless.

- Its internal parts are very tightly packed together.
- Though it has all, or nearly all, of the same parts as an adult, fullsize PC, it’s smaller.
- Some of its components are made of materials much lighter and more delicate than those intended for PCs.
- It is small and portable, and though unlikely to wander off, it can be kidnapped or misplaced.
- The entire machine is encased within a plastic or other engineered material.

And so, like a baby, your laptop needs a bit of extra care and attention. Obtain and maintain a good quality case that provides some cushioning for your laptop and protection against rain. If its really pouring, find a strong plastic bag to wrap around your laptop within the case. Take it out of the bag as soon as you can, though. High humidity and large temperature swings are hard on things in plastic bags.

Dont do this on your laptop:

• Dont place a heavy object on top of the case. The cover of the laptop sits only a few millimeters from the delicate LCD screen and you could end up warping or breaking the display.
• Dont allow the laptop to get wet. Keep it away from cups of coffee, cans of soda, and glasses of water.
• Dont drop a laptop off the desktop. And dont let it tumble from an unzippered carrying case. Just dont. Although it is possible that the laptop and its components will survive, this is a chance not worth taking.
• Dont turn off the computer while its writing data to the hard drive, a recordable CD or DVD, or a floppy disk. Information on the drive or disk could become corrupted or lost.
• Dont let the laptop near strong magnetic fields. They could corrupt or erase data on your hard drive or any floppy disks you may carry with you. Magnetic fields exist in and around large audio speakers, television sets, and some other electronic devices that aren’t shielded to keep magnetism within their case.
• Dont expose your laptop to extremes of temperature. Very cold temperature could make your case and LCD brittle and subject to cracking; the battery life will also be shortened by cold. Very hot temperatures could warp the case and LCD. Keep this in mind if you need to store your laptop in the trunk or passenger compartment of a car.
• Dont open the cover to external ports on your laptop unless you are using one of the connections. These ports include serial, parallel, and PS/2 connectors, all of which have been mostly supplanted by USB devices. Keep the cover closed to avoid damage to the pins and inadvertent electrical shorts from contact with metallic objects.
• Dont use your laptop in extremely dusty or dirty environments. Dust or sand can get into the case through ventilation holes and cause damage to the hard drive, CD or DVD, and other internal mechanisms.

How to clean the LCD and case as needed. To clean the exterior of your laptop system, use the following procedure:

1. Lightly moisten a soft, lint-free cloth with either a 50-50 mixture of isopropyl alcohol and water, a non-ammoniated glass cleaner, or pure water. (Hot water works best.) Never spray liquid cleaner directly on the system, especially the display or keyboard.

2. Gently wipe the LCD display with the moistened cloth and follow with a dry cloth. Be sure the cloth is not wet enough to drip and that the LCD is completely dry when you’re finished. You can use a piece of an old, old undershirt that’s been washed and cleaned so that it leaves no lint; if you prefer spending money, you can purchase an antistatic LCD-cleaning cloth from a computer supply store or an industrial lint-free tissue like Kimwipes.

3. Gently vacuum the keyboard every few weeks or every few trips, whichever comes first. Use a vacuum with a brush end to avoid scratching the case. You can vacuum from above or on an angle to get beneath the keys. As an alternative, you can use can of compressed air. Take great care to hold the can upright so the liquid propellant within does not come out with the air. Carefully hold your laptop at a sharp angle and work the jet of air down, from the top to the bottom.