Computer Meltdowns

My laptop has been acting really weird latelty. I will turn it on and it will be fine for a while, and then the screen will go black. I figured out that if I shine the desk lamp onto the screen I can see what is there. So the lights go out I guess. Last week Rob opened his laptop and the plastic around the screen broke, so he can't close it anymore. Then yesterday he tried to use his computer and it wouldn't let him open any programs. He opened it in safe mode and was able to move most of his files onto an external harddrive. This afternoon he spent an hour and a half on the phone with Dell customer service, but so far nothing has happened. Luckily, we still have our desktop computer, which besides from being old, is usable. Rob tried to turn it on yesterday and it wasn't turning on. Then I noticed that the screen and the printer had power, so I suggested that he check the power cord on the tower. Yup, it was just unplugged.