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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.
January 15th, 2009 at 11:15 am
i have a acer 5100 i was having problems with some of the programmms you suggested a recovery dics. but i found afile containing recovery booster(full back up)
so i click ok. said restart computer. on restarting, it gets as far as windows logo then went back to bootin up,, got to windows logo again
just keeps going on and on repeating its self .i can get into set up but dont really no what to do.
many thanks if you can help ,ray
January 14th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I have an Acer Aspire 5100. It boots but first I hear 1 beep followed by 2 beeps then all of the regular normal sounds but the screen remains blank throughout the boot. I’ve tried connecting to an external monitor but it doesn’t feed to the external. Is it the motherboard or something else?? Thanks so much. M
January 14th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Thanks for the help!
January 14th, 2009 at 7:02 am
From question #109: Hi, I opened up the keyboard and noticed the cables were not loose and installed fine. After putting everything back together, the computer started to work fine. But then the next day, it was the same problem again, with the touchpad and keyboard. That’s what its been doing, one day it will work fine, the next it won’t, meaning the touchpad/keyboard.
How do I enter the BIOS setup menu? Is that when I turn the computer on, it says “Press any key to cancel disk scan” or something like that? If so, the keyboard doesn’t work for that either.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Brian G,
What if you unplug the internal keyboard and use the laptop only with the external one. Can you boot to the login screen this way? Will it make continuing series of load beeps on startup when the internal keyboard is disconnected from the motherboard?
January 13th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
wes,
Try reconnecting RAM modules. Remove modules one by one and test the laptop with each RAM module in each slot separately.
It’s possible that one of the slots is failing or one of the RAM modules is not making good contact with the slot.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Gary,
I guess the first thing to try will be reconnecting the touchpad and keyboard cables, just to make sure it’s not a connection related issue.
By the way, did you notice that your internal keyboard is not working only in Windows. Can you enter the BIOS setup menu and navigate the BIOS using arrow keys?
January 13th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
tim,
It sounds like either you have a faulty hard drive or there is something wrong with the hard drive controller on the motherboard. Unfortunately, the only way to find out which one is causing it is testing the laptop with another known good hard drive.
If you experiencing the same problem even with anther hard drive, apparently it’s bad controller on the motherboard, which means you’ll have to replace the whole motherboard.
January 13th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Getting back to your question to me (# 102 above), the laptop keyboard doesn’t work at all. When this problem first came up a few days ago I also had an issue with a few startups that did not proceed all the way to the windows login prompt but started a continuing series of loud beeps. I eventually did get to point that laptop was starting up properly up to the login prompt screen, then along with using the seperate keyboard connected via USB was able to login and the computer worked fine. However, sfter one day of success with the seperate keyboard, I’m now back to the issue that startups do not complete (do not get to the login screen) and the continuing series of load beeps commence. I need to unplug and remove battery to get the the computer to power down. I’ve not checked the bios. I think I’ve read some things written above about this, but at this point am not really familer with how to do this or if i can do it without being able to get through login.
January 13th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I have a problem where I must apply pressure on the left side of the track pad. If I don’t the computer will begin to run very slowly and eventually freeze. Any suggestions? I have an Acer Aspire 5100. Thanks!