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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 29th, 2009 at 10:43 am
matthew,
Both memory slots are in the same place. Both slots could be accessed through the door on the bottom. You can see both RAM modules on the third image.
Sounds like a problem with the screen.
January 29th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I have an Acer 3100 – it’s almost the same as 5100. Mine has PATA hdd – but another 3100 on my company uses SATA hdd. On the bios setup it shows 2 controlers (SATA & PATA). Is it really possible it has both interfaces?
January 29th, 2009 at 12:49 am
hi there i have an acer aspire 5100 and im going to put in 2X 2gb RAM, are the ports for the ram in the same place or is one under the key board like on some laptops, also my screen often gets a blue line of pixels along the right side of my screen only about 2mm, i was wondering if this was because of the LCD screen or something to do with a setting on my laptop? sometimes it goes away after the screen saver comes on…
January 28th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Graeme,
Sure you can. Just make sure the new drive has the same interface. If you have a SATA drive installed, your new drive also must be SATA.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Can I replace the current HDD in my Acer Aspire 5100 laptop with laptop HDD from any brand and model as long as they are same types of disk? such as Western Digital, or Seagate etc? or does it have to one defined by Acer?
January 28th, 2009 at 5:19 am
thank you very much; with your help I could remove my fan and clean it
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:59 pm
i am trying to replace the dvd on an aspire 9410, just so i don’t break anything else. any tips?
January 21st, 2009 at 4:02 am
Thanks for your response to my question about screen brightness. Do you have any further comment on my question #121? I wrote:
As you suggested (response 111) I unplugged the internal keyboard and booted up with just an external keyboard attached. The PC started up fine. I will try to use it this way for a couple days to make sure no other problems arise. If all keeps working well it looks like probably I should go ahead and try to replace the internal keyboard. Anything else you think I should check first? Thanks for all your help!
January 21st, 2009 at 2:23 am
Problem with Acer 5100. Keyboard error message displayed when booting or keyboard will be unresponsive after sometime. There are times that I can get into the BIOS settings screen, but the system will hang-up after a while. Also, there’s a buzzing sound coming from the speakers. Is there such a thing as a “grounded” keyboard?
January 20th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Garth,
That could be software related problem. Try reinstalling Windows from the recovery disc. Do not forget to back up all personal data before you run the recovery process.
If you still experience the same problem (no internal or external sound) even after reimaging the hard drive back to factory defaults, there could be a problem with the sound board which is most likely integrated into the motherboard.