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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.
Find brand new replacement laptop batteries in stock and ready to ship your way.
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.
November 12th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Hey there. Thanks a lot for this tutorials, I happen to have the same model of this Acer Notebook, so it was pretty cool to find a tutorial on taking it apart.
I´ve read around that it´s possible to replace CPU on this notebooks. My processor as you know, is the Turion X2 with 1.6Ghz and L2 cache of 512k. I´m a 3d animator and I use Maya to animate 3d rigs.
It obviously run a little slow, specially when I´m working on the graph editor. Takes ages to move a keyframe.
I belive my processor is the TL-50. I would like to replace for a TL-60, which is 2.0Ghz and has L2 of 1MB. Since they´re are for socket S1, I think it could work, but would be nice to know about someone that has acctually done that ( if you know or have done yourself).
Also is there any chance to replace for a faster graphics card. Mine is the Radeon 1100 128mb shared.
bye and thanks
November 7th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Have anyone successfully unmounted the bracket of the original hardrive? In my case it really feels like the screws are glued and I cant get them loose, not even with the help of my good old friend “CRC 5-56″ :\.
I don’t want to take the risk and mount the new drive without the bracket as it functions as pressure protection.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:50 am
i have an acer 5100 laptop, and i set a recovery, and forgot it. is there any way i could recover the password?
November 6th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Ashley,
Not sure what’s going on. Try entering the BIOS setup menu and then load default settings. Can you see the new hard drive in the BIOS? Try rebooting the laptop again.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Heri Sanchez,
Do you still have the broken piece? You can try this. Insert the keyboard cable into the connector and put the broken piece too. After that secure the connection with sticky tape. Might work.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:26 am
GHUGAN,
1. Could be bad memory. Try removing one of the memory modules and start the laptop with only one module installed. Try different modules in different slots.
2. Remove the hard drive. Try entering the BIOS setup when the hard dive is removed. A bad drive could freeze the system.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Hi, I am fixing this acer 5100 lap top but the clips that holds the keyboard connector are broke,Do you know if there is another way to repair it with out replacing the hole motherboard?
I think that the keyboard works but I have no idea where to purchase the clips you mentioned in step 7.
Gracias
November 6th, 2008 at 9:24 am
what to do if the screen stop at acer bios and automaticlly start entering setup but hang. please help me.
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
thanks so much…my harddrive just went caput and I had no idea how to remove it! though, I still have some trouble remove the DVD drive since it’s busted as well…anyways thanks again.
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:07 am
I have tried to upgrade my hard drive in an Acer Aspire 5633WLMi without success – the drive gets to the bios screen with the Acer logo but does not boot into windows. I have cloned the new drive using Acronis Migrate Easy 7.0 and HD Clone without success…Any advice