HomeIn this tutorial I’ll explain how to remove LCD screen and replace inverter board in an Acer Aspire 5100 laptop. This tutorial will work for many other Acer laptops with the same body.
In my previous article I was taking an Acer Aspire 5100 apart.
OK, let’s get inside the display assembly.
First of all, turn off the laptop, unplug AC adapter and remove the battery.
The screen bezel has four screws hidden under for seals. Two rubber seals on the top of the bezel and two plastic seals on the bottom.
You can remove all four screw seals with a sharp object as it shown on the picture below. Glue removed seals somewhere on the bezel so they don’t get lost.
Remove four screws found under seals.
Start remove the screen bezel with your fingers. Proceed slowly while removing the bezel.
Continue removing the screen bezel.
The bezel has been removed.
The inverter board is mounted below the LCD screen. If you are replacing the inverter board, you’ll have to separate the top cover from the LCD screen first.
Remove four screws. Two of them securing display hinges and other two securing the inverter board.
Carefully separate the display cover from the screen and access the LCD cable connector.
You’ll have to unplug the LCD cable from the screen.
First, unglue the clear sticky tape securing the connection.
Second, unplug the LCD cable from the connector on the screen.
Now you can access the inverter board witch is still connected to the laptop by cables on both sides.
Carefully unplug cables from both sides of the inverter board.
Remove the screen inverter board and replace it with a new inverter.
Here’s how you can remove the LCD screen.
Simply remove four screws securing the LCD screen to the display hinge. Remove four more screws from the other side of the screen.
Now you can remove and replace the LCD screen with a new LCD screen.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
March 20th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Hi saved me some time to remove hard drive , however need tips how to get at left click button as this does not work anymore thanks Robbie
March 18th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Thanks again for a great guide. First you helped me change/replace my Acer 5100 keyboard, and now the lcd. I will let you know how I get on when i start work on it.
Thanks again.!
Micky
March 16th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I have an ACER 5100 that while viewing photos the screen went black. When I push the small plunger that senses the laptop screen to be closed the screen will reappear for a second or maybe two but it is dark in the left lower corner. I am able to use an external monitor without any difficulty. Should I start with the inverter? Thank you in advance.
March 7th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
I was having problems with a Compaq 2100 15″ LCD that would sometimes come on when booting, most of the time not. When it did come on it would start good then get horizontal lines, then sections of horizontal lines then blank, but the back light would remain lit. After messing around with the inverter, I decided it was not that and since the backlite was on, it was good too. After much fiddling, it was discovered that ALL these symptoms were due to a poor connection of the power supply to the laptop’s connector. FYI
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:20 am
you’re right, my screen looks exactly as example 7.
now i know i have to replace the lcd… but probably i won’t, my laptop is too old for that kind of expensive surgery
anyway, most of the time i use it as a desktop pc with the external monitor.
thanks a lot for your time, you’re a great asset to the DIY community !! ^^
1001
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:06 am
1001,
If the video works fine when you apply pressure on the LCD controller board but it goes bad as soon as you release the pressure, most likely it’s related to the LCD controller board, which means you’ll have to replace the whole LCD screen. I’ve seen failures like that many times before.
You are right, it doesn’t sound like a bad video cable.
Take a look at this post: Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?
I think your failure is similar to the example 7.
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:48 am
Dear LapTech,
hi again,
i’ve figured it out that it may not be the video cable.
The reason why i’m saying this it’s because when i apply pressure over the circuit board behind the lcd screen (upper-left, looking the screen from the right side), it works fine.
Otherwise, when i don’t push the circuit board, it goes white, vertical color lines and other patterns…
am i right?
thanks.
February 26th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Dear Laptop tech,
thanks responding to my post.
This site has been very helpful
~Blake.
February 26th, 2009 at 11:03 am
mcprgirl,
Shouldn’t be a problem.
Can you use the laptop with an external monitor? Can you see external video?
I’m just trying to figure out if your problem is related to the inverter or not.
When you have a bad inverter board, the laptop will work and the screen will be very dim, but you still should be able to use the laptop with an external monitor. Can you?
February 26th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Your instructions are great. I have an Acer Aspire 5100 and I bought a new iPhone, during synch it screwed up my laptop. My monitor went black and my computer stopped booting. I replaced the hard drive and decided since I was adding new parts to upgrade the memory. I tried to get my laptop running again with the recovery cd’s my screen would show the acer splash screen and go black. I ordered a new inverter and just replaced that, now my computer boots but I haven’t been able to run the recovery cds as the screen is so dark that I can read what is on the screen. Getting frustrated now. I realized I forgot to disconnect the lcd cable connector before removing the old inverter and replacing it with the new one. Would that have any affect? Any suggestions?
Thanks for writing on this topic.
February 25th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
1001,
Could be bad video cable or LCD screen. To me your description sounds like a bad/damaged video cable, I would try replacing it first.
If you are not sure about taking it apart, please don’t. You can make it worse. Take it to the repair center.
February 25th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
mike,
Could be bad inverter or backlight lamp. I would try replacing the inverter board first, it’s way easier and you have a good chance to fix the laptop.
Did you search eBay? In my post you’ll find a link to the eBay page with inverters for Acer 5100 laptops (under the 10th image).
February 25th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Jake,
Nope, you cannot do that.
February 25th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Pat,
You’ll have to test your laptop with an external monitor attached to the VGA port. Can you get video on the external monitor? Do you see same vertical lines?
If lines appear on both internal and external screens, there is a problem with the video card.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Blake,
Sounds like a problem with the motherboard. Did you try installing different memory modules into DIFFERENT slots on the motherboard? You can try minimizing the laptop as much as possible, remove everything except motherboard, CPU and memory. Try turning it on this way. If still nothing, apparently there is a problem with the motherboard. From my experience, CPU failures are very rare.
Doubt it. It’s very unlikely that both modules failed at the same time.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:05 am
Hi, i have an Acer Aspire 1654 WLMI. My laptop screen started flickering, freezing and making some beautiful wallpapers made by colour lines and other fancy stuff. Anyway, depending how i move the screen, it works well. Using an external screen, works perfectly.
Any idea of what’s happening? Anyone having the same creepy problem? Any solution?
Thanks in advance.
ps: i guess it’s some bad cable connection or something… but i don’t know enough about hardware and laptop disassembly to fix it!
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Hi, i have an acer aspire 5100-5840 laptop. I’ve been using it for about 2years never had any problems. Recently, i left the laptop on and fell asleep. When i woke up the screen is black, at first i thought maybe it went to hybernation mode but when i try to turn it back on it would still stay black screen. So, i pull the plug and took out the battery and put them back in again hope it would work. Only this time i find that the minute i turn on my laptop the screen would come on for 3 secs and immediately went black. After its booted i could see a faint image on my screen and i tried to press Fn+F6 but the screen would only flashes for 1 sec and back to black. I waited for a few days to try again by keep pressin Fn+f6 and the screen stay normal for about 2 mins and went black again and since then i could never get the screen back to normal again. Theres only faint lights in the background. I tested on my external Monitor and the laptop works fine. My guess maybe its backlight inverter problem??? Or is the lamp? If so any ideas where i can buy the parts or fix it?? Thank you!
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Is there any way to take the LCD screen out and make it into its own monitor?
February 21st, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I have an Acer Aspire 3000 Laptop. Everytime I try to boot it up, the screen blanks out with Vertical lines. If I try to Reboot, the Screen stays off, the HDD spins up, but doesn’t read, and the cooling fan starts up. I have to boot it 3 or 4 times before it works a little while on battery. If I try to Plug in my AC Adaptor, the screen blanks out like above. Please Help Me!!
February 21st, 2009 at 9:51 am
Dear Labtop Tech,
My Acer 5100 will not boot.
The Power LED is on, fan is on, hard drive light flashes for a few seconds but does not come on after, and the display stays black.
I have reseated the CPU after I was told the AMD processor may have been an issue.
I have also reconnected both 512mb memory modules, and even tested them one at a time (as you suggested to other posts). There is still no response … just the same symptoms:
-Power LED is on
- fan is on
- hard drive light flashes for a few seconds but does not come on after
- the display stays black.
Do have any other suggestions? Do you think my memory 512MB cards (modules) are both defective?
Or is this something much bigger?
thanks for your time
~Blake.
February 15th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
excellent tut.. saved my acer 5315…
thx so much….
February 13th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
I have an Acer Aspire 5100, the LCD was replaced less than a year ago, I have had no problems with it since being replaced (I stepped on the lid, totally my fault) A couple weeks ago the screen had trouble turning on, after a few reboots it would turn on. It continued for a few weeks, until yesterday the screen just hasn’t come back on. I have plugged a monitor into it, and it works fine. When I boot the laptop up, it flickers but does nothing. In your opinion would it be just the inverter?
thank you very much, I find your site extremely useful for this useless computer!
February 10th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Hey, so before the backlight on my lcd decided to not workin anymore, It use to short out (meaning my screen would flicker on and off). I use to have to move the screen around to get it to stay on. Now i turn it on, and half of the screen works for a good 5 seconds then shuts off. I can still barely see that everything is coming up fine but the light will not stay on. My initial guess was wiring, so i took it apart and all wires seemed to be in tact. Im wondering if a new inverter would fix this or if the screen is just junk.
Please let me know what you think.
Thanks
February 7th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Hey! – Just want to tell you, I’ve found GREAT information on your site! I was able to replace my keyboard on my Acer Aspire 3000 laptop in about 1/2 hour!
Thanks for all your info!
Joe
January 25th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Ian Sechler,
I’m not sure what’s going on with your laptop. My guess would be it’s either a bad video cable or LCD screen.
January 25th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Alright,
I’ve removed the hard drive, and attempted to boot several times now. No luck with the display.
Yes, the laptop works with an external monitor, but not the internal LCD.
No, there’s no image at all on the LCD. As I stated before in reference to the small green LED on the lower left of it’s housing, I suspect it doesn’t even turn on.
Is it possible to further nail down what the cause is? Can you even replace the video cables if they’re bad?
One last thing I’d like to note… I said in my prior post that if left alone long enough powered down, upon the next boot, there was a chance my display would return. I think I’ve proven this as a fact now. A handful of times over the last few days, I’ve powered it up every so often and checked. I’ve noticed two things… If upon one boot, the display does not power up, if turned back off, and left alone for say… six hours or more, the next boot stands a high chance of the display powering on. And as I’ve said, once it’s on, it’ll stay on for as long as the laptop is running. Once I power down, if I attempt to boot back up, the display will be gone again. But if I wait those six or so hours… you get the idea.
January 24th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Ian Sechler,
Sounds like you have a hardware related problem and I don’t think it’s related to Vista OS. To confirm that, you can remove the hard dive and start the laptop. If you still have no image/light on the screen even when the hard dive is removed, it’s not a software issue.
So, the laptop works with an external monitor but not with the internal LCD, right? It tells me that most likely the motherboard/video card in your laptop works properly.
Take a closer look on the laptop LCD. Can you see any image at all? If you see a very faint image, your problem could be related to the inverter board OR backlight lamp.
If you cannot see any image on the laptop screen at all, but the external monitor works fine, there could be a problem with the video cable or LCD screen.
January 24th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Dave,
1. Make sure the new LCD screen is seated correctly and the video cable is properly connected to the screen.
2. Could be a defective LCD screen.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Hello, I need some assistance troubleshooting just what’s going on with my 5100’s display…
Not too long ago I installed Vista Ultimate, previously I’d been using XP Pro SP3. I had to go on the “great driver hunt” to obtain everything to get my 5100 working again, and as of three days ago, I found the last piece, drivers for the onboard card reader.
None of this is really crucial to the problem, but it gets us to it.
Upon installation, I was prompted to restart, and did so. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention while it rebooted, but when Vista finally chimed that it was at the logon screen, and my display was still dark, I knew something wasn’t right. Assuming my laptop was once again behaving poorly, I powered it off and restarted. My screen came back. I assumed all was well, and went about my business, then placed it in hibernation, and returned a few hours later, only to discover upon booting back up, that I had a display ONLY until it finished showing the “windows is resuming” screen. Then it cut off.
I powered down and back up, the screen never came on. Several times I did this, never got the screen back. However placing it in Hibernation and resuming gave me just those few seconds of display during boot.
Over the last few days now I’ve been attempting to solve the problem myself with little success.
The VGA port on the backside works. If I plug a monitor into it, it behaves like the primary screen. This has allowed me to discover that my 5100’s screen (when not working) apparently doesn’t exist anywhere. This also allowed me to discover, much to my relief, that the system itself appears to continue working perfectly fine. My display is just off.
Much googling lead me to your page, and others, mostly pointing to bad inverter boards. The person in at this forum has virtually my EXACT problem. Unfortunately a solution beyond possibly sending it in (I’m not under warranty anymore, haven’t been for at least six months now.) and the fact that it could be a problem with my AMD related hardware (I loathe Acer support, I’ve found no documents containing information like this, I’m not even sure where they would be) isn’t available. The fact his laptop is an HP model doesn’t help me much either, but at least the problem is very very similar and contained some interesting information.
All of this in mind, I set back to work on it today.
I initially was going to attempt to reinstall/repair the system, but discovered Vista apparently doesn’t have an option to do that anymore. (I may have missed it if it’s not under Repair Computer) Regardless, I’m beyond thinking this is software related now.
Restarting after attempting this Repair brought my display back. Thinking I may have just struck fear into the circuits of my computer, I attempted several restarts to prove it worked. It did not. But some progress has been made… Unlike initially, now it seems that if left alone long enough, when booted up, my display will work until I shutdown, restart, or hibernate. I’m not 100% sure, I’m not even 50% sure. It does seem that way though.
Following your instructions I’ve cracked open the display. My inverter board looks good, I’ve been lead to believe if it was bad, I’d certainly know about it and be able to tell. All the cables also appear to be in good condition, as does the display itself. While cracked open, I took the opportunity to put the battery back in and power up, just to see if I could tell anything new. The only thing I’ve gained from that, is the theory that my display wasn’t powering up at all is true. You may have seen a small green LED on the bottom left of the panel when it’s on. I’m lead to believe that’s a power LED like on every other monitor, because it was not lit when my display was failing, and was when it worked.
I’ve attempted to research signs and symptoms of laptop displays dying, but haven’t turned up anything useful.
All in all, this has lead me back to your page, posting here for help. I would’ve place all of this in an email, but perhaps other people will benefit from it, and I couldn’t find an address for you.
Do you have any ideas about what’s going on?
Is my display on it’s last legs?
Could it be something else entirely?
The AMD defect perhaps?
I’m going to thank you ahead of time for anything you can do to help. I’d really prefer to not have to spend anything to fix this, and even less so for a new laptop. Nevertheless, if need be, I am considering all my options.
Thank you very, very much. I look forward to your assistance.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Hello, I Have an Acre 3690-2900 Laptop Computer i got from a friend of mine, and for whatever reason the screen got broken, i took everything apart needed… replaced the screen and when i put everything together it only works if i put my hand on the upper left hand corner of the screen and pull it in a twisting motion twords me, as long as i hold it like that it works, the minute i let go of it, the thing goes haywire, can anyone help me??