Home
In this guide I’ll explain how to take apart an Acer Aspire 5100 laptop. I’ll show how to remove and replace major laptop components such as CD/DVD drive, memory, hard drive, wireless card, cooling fan and keyboard.
In the next article I’ll explain how to remove LCD screen and replace inverter board.
First of all, make sure the laptop is turned off, the power adapter is disconnected and the battery is removed.
Both memory modules, wireless card, cooling and and hard drive can be accessed from the bottom. Remove four screws marked with red circles and loosen two screws marked with green circles. Remove both covers.
You can search for Acer Aspire 5100 spare parts here.
Removing DVD drive:
1. Remove one screw (red circle) securing the drive.
2. Push the drive from the laptop with a flathead screwdriver.
3. Pull the drive form the laptop.
Removing hard drive:
1. Pull the hard drive to the right side until it’s disconnected from the motherboard.
2. Lift up the hard drive.
If you are replacing the hard drive with a new one, you’ll have to transfer the mounting bracket to a new drive.
My laptop had a 80GB 5400RPM SATA hard drive installed. You can upgrade it to a larger and faster SATA drive.
100GB, 120GB, 160GB and 250GB SATA drives should work just fine in this laptop.
Removing laptop memory:
1. Carefully spread latches on both sides of the memory module until it pops up at a 30 degree angle.
2. Pull the memory module by the edges.
Acer Aspire 5100 has two memory slots. You can install up to 4GB RAM total. Up to 2GB memory module into each slot. You should use PC2-533 DDR2-667MHz 200pin SODIMM RAM modules.
Removing wireless card:
1. Disconnect both antenna cables. Grab the antenna cable connector with your fingers and unsnap it from the connector on the wireless card.
2. Spread latches on both sides of the wireless card same way as you did with RAM modules.
3. When the wireless card pops up at a 30 degree angle, pull it from the slot by the edges. Remove wireless card.
Removing cooling fan:
1. Remove two screws securing the fan.
2. Carefully disconnect fan cable from the motherboard.
3. Lift up and remove the fan.
My laptop had a lot of dust trapped between the fan and heatsink. This dust buildup kills normal airflow inside the cooling module and causes laptop overheating. You can blow off dust using canned air.
Here’s how you can replace thermal paste between the heatsink and CPU.
Removing laptop keyboard.
In the following steps I’ll explain how to disconnect and remove the keyboard.
1. Lift up the keyboard bezel with a flathead screwdriver as it shown on the picture below.
2. Remove keyboard bezel.
3. Remove two screws securing the keyboard.
4. Carefully lift up the keyboard, it’s still attached to the motherboard.
5. The keyboard is connected to the motherboard via a flat ribbon cable. Before you can remove the keyboard, you’ll have to unlock the connector and release the cable.
6. Carefully move the black tab about 1-2 millimeters up with your fingernails as it shown on the picture below.
DO NOT SEPARATE THIS TAB FROM THE CONNECTOR, IT HAS TO STAY ATTACHED TO THE CONNECTOR.
If you break the keyboard connector, you’ll have to replace the whole motherboard. Be careful.
7. Now you can release the cable and remove the keyboard.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
February 7th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
I have owned a 5100 for 3 years and I must say as the base config…it is bad. Stick windows 7 64 bit and put in total 4 gb of ram = very nice and snappy computer. Added ATI unified drivers and boosted video speed as well. Must say the best 399 computer purchase ever (black friday sale). Add win7 29.99 (student sale) and ram 85 dollars = best computer less than 520…ever
February 7th, 2010 at 8:53 am
Isabel, did you find how to fix the keyboard, mouse and USB ports? I have exactly the same problem, I get to the logon screen, but can’t type or use the mouse.
February 4th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Anyone has a service manual or tips for disassembling an Acer Aspire 5551?
or post it here for evry1 who’s stuck like me to see… Thnx
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Great Site! Helped a lot. Unfortunately, I found it after I ordered a SATA harddrive only to find out my laptop has the IDE. Thanks anyway, I’ve learned a lot.
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:41 pm
First, the laptop would not turn on most of the time. I kept it on forever instead of turning off when I could get it to go on.
Than it constantly crashed with a blue screen with something like remove space, BIOS, etc.
Now it just won’t turn on again after my brother redid the whole operating system.
He thinks the screen is broken. I do not know. I put the power on, the fan goes, but I see nothing. This has been one of the original problems since the start, but now I can’t get it to wotk at all. Any advice?
THANKS!
January 31st, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Hello i have a acer 5100 laptop that the keyboard and touchpad do not work .So i purchased a new keyboard and the darn keyboard and touchpad still do not work tried unplugging keyboard and the touchpad cable and hook up usb mouse and keyboard from my acer desktop ,and they also are a no go.Seems like no power on usb ports.On start up i get the acer logo then it just goes to a black screen.Could the motherboard be defective and is there a way to check the motherboard?Thanks in advance for any feedback
January 30th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Link is back up and I have downloaded the manual
Thanks for that
January 30th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Ok great thanks Laptop Tech for the link but unfortunately it’s not working (the link is broken)
Wezzie
January 26th, 2010 at 10:39 am
wezzie,
There is no easy access. You’ll have to disassemble the laptop in order to remove the top cover.
This service manual for Acer Aspire 5680 / 5630 / 3690 will be helpful. It’s a 8MB pdf file and will take some time to download.
January 26th, 2010 at 8:19 am
Just replaced my LCD screen (Acer Aspire 5630) following your great instructions, now I need to repair or replace the touchpad buttons or left button, any easy ideas to remove top cover to get at the parts without taking the laptop apart?
Cheers Wezzie – Greta site by the way
January 24th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
my acer aspire’s metal rod is broke, but my question is , is the power jack connected to the motherboard?is it fixable?
January 24th, 2010 at 9:38 am
I have an Aspire 5100 and everytime I turn on my laptopp it beeps 2 times then I get the following message:
ERROR
Resource Conflict – PCI in slot 3
Bus:06, Device:04, Function:00
ERROR
Resource Conflict – PCI in slot 3
Bus:06, Device:04, Function:01
ERROR
Resource Conflict – PCI in slot 3
Bus:06, Device:04, Function:02
ERROR
Resource Conflict – PCI in slot 3
Bus:06, Device:04, Function:03
When I press F1 to continue, nothing happens..PLEASE HELP!!
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:46 am
Ok i have read alot of what people have to say on this site. and i have a problem as many of you here
well my aspire 5100 have gone black screen but everything else works (HDD, DVD,Fan,lights).
Sometimes when i boot up the Acer logo apears and boots up windows for some secs then the screen goes black with white lines or red lines.
if i reset it (take of battery and unplug AC and holding in on/off boton) i could go on for some seconds again.
if i dont reset it i wont go on.
i was thinking that maybe its the heat or the memory or maybe even the GPU so i open up my 5100.
i cleaned the fan and put some new Cpu paste on CPU and GPU.
that didnt work.
Maybe its the memory. i removed the 2 modules and placed them at difrent modes.
I started up by useing one at the time.
its boot up for some minutes with one of the memory modules.
so my question is, could this be that both of the memory mofules are faulty.?
or could it be the GPU?
And another strange thing, if i take out both memory modules and boot up without them i only gets black screen.
January 21st, 2010 at 3:57 pm
RamProblems,
You should be able to use 2×2GB and max your memory to 4GB.
PC2-5300 DDR2-667 200pin SDRAM SODIMM RAM should work just fine.
January 21st, 2010 at 3:51 am
Great site! Sorry for the noob question, but I have a Acer Aspire 5100-3949. I want to upgrade the ram because it’s SO SLOW (running Vista). I have 2 x 512MB [2Rx16 DC2-4200S-444-12] in there right now and was either going to get 2×1g or 2×2g sticks, but I’m not 100% sure if I should get the kind stated above [PC2-533 DDR2-667MHz 200pin SODIMM RAM] because I bought my labtop several years back and don’t know if it’s outdated or not. Would someone kindly offer me some advice and point me in the right direction? Thanks guys!
January 19th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
so that means the powerjack is not part of the motherboard? and to replace the powerjack, where would i by a replacement and how much does it usually run for?
January 18th, 2010 at 6:31 am
meshababy1,
Sounds like the power jack is broken.
It’s necessary to disassemble the laptop, remove the motherboard and replace the damaged power jack.
January 18th, 2010 at 6:25 am
Isabel,
If the keyboard stopped working on the BIOS level, most likely this is a hardware related failure. I cannot tell if this it the keyboard or motherboard related failure without testing the laptop.
If you are ready to disassemble the laptop, here’s what you can try.
1. Try reconnecting the keyboard cable on the motherboard. Maybe the connection is loose.
2. Disconnect the keyboard cable from the motherboard and start the laptop. If the touch pad works fine when the keyboard is disconnected, it’s possible that you have a faulty keyboard.
3. Leave the keyboard connected and disconnect the touch pad cable instead. If the keyboard works fine when the touch pad is disconnected, it’s possible that there is a problem with the touch pad or touch pad cable.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:58 am
I have an Acer Aspire 5100. The laptop keyboard doesn’t appear to be working. Windows boots up as far as the login screen but I can’t type anything in. The fn keys don’t work (eg to get into safe mode or the bios) which seems to confirm the keyboard isn’t responding.
Also the mousepad or a USB mouse that I tried don’t work. I wondered if you have any suggestions what may be wrong and where to start looking. I really appreciate your help.
January 17th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
i have a problem with my acer.. well the little metal rod in the charger hole broke .. is i fixable and how can i fix it? please help!!!!
January 11th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Deb King,
Apparently, Acer Aspire 5100 laptops had two different hard drive types installed. In the laptop I used in this guide it was a SATA hard drive. In your laptop you have an IDE hard drive installed.
Nope, you should be buying another IDE hard drive.
I don’t think that large IDE hard drives (for notebooks) are very common. You can replace your failed drive with another 120GB or use a 160GB IDE drive.
January 11th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
I am confused – hope you can clarify for me. I have been told that my Acer Aspire 5100 Model BL51 needs new hard drive. I removed the drive and i is a Hitachi Travelstar 120GB ATA/IDE drive. Your answers to previous questions say that I should be able to go to a 250GB Hard Drive and you say to look for SATA – but is that right????? If my factory drive is IDE then should I be buying SATA? I am having trouble finding a 250 GB drive that says IDE on the web… Your link above “where to order replacement parts” takes me to Ebay, but the 250 GB hard drive all say SATA . Thanks for a great site!
Deb
January 8th, 2010 at 6:54 am
Isn’t this Acers responsibility? I’ve had my share of frustrations from the bad driver support they offer, but this really takes the cake; a BIOS file that irreversibly self-destructs my entire laptop.
But I’m sure they have a clause in there that they take no responsibility for BIOS upgrading. F*** Acer and their planned obsolescence.
Any more ideas what I can do to diagnose the problem?
January 7th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
mad,
It’s possible that the motherboard failed while updating the BIOS.
I believe even with corrupted BIOS you should get the power LED when the AC adapter is plugged.
I’m afraid you’ll have to replace the entire motherboard.