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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.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
how to find bluetooth on aspire 5100 and change it ?
February 26th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Done365,
First of all, try booting from a bootable CD. You can use Windows installation CD, live Linux CD, etc…
If the laptop boots from a bootable CD but the drive will not appear in the My Computer, most likely it’s a software related problem.
You can try this method to get the drive back:
CD/DVD drive stopped reading all CDs and DVDs
In most cases removing the UpperFilters/LowerFilters registry entries works well.
February 26th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I have a similar problem at that of Theresa. My 5100′s factory UJ 850 DVD drive used to disappear every now and then. I would have to go to the device manager and refresh until it came back, but now it’s gone and won’t return. What can I do?? I am not convinced that it’s the drive, becuase it’s light is lit and when a disc is put in it spins it’s heart out. What’s going on??
Thanx in advance and I appreciate your forum.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Kevin,
Do you have a SATA or IDE hard drive installed into your laptop. Here’s the difference between these two hard drives.
I’m not sure what you call the power card. Is it the power jack? You can buy it on eBay.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Hi,
I have two broken acer aspires and now on my third it is not from manufactor issues. It is that my dear wife keeps manageing to drop them and bust the dc power port off. so my question is I have tried to search the part number for my 5100z and come up with nill. The other is an 5610z witch i can get the part but can not solder to save my life. I guess my questions are 1. for the 5610 where can i get an external case for my hard drive? ( bought 1 from R.S. and it was the wrong one.) 2. could you point me in the direction for a new power card for my 5100?
February 24th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Mike Merriman,
It’s really hard to tell what’s going on with your laptop. Could be some kind of grounding issue but in order to narrow down the problem, it’s necessary to disassemble the laptop and take a closer look inside. Could be loose connection somewhere on the motherboard. There is no simple answer.
February 24th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
To comment 170,
If the cooling fan started making noise, cleaning it will not help. You’ll have to replace the fan.
February 24th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Why buy acer,
Could be overheating. Take a look inside the heat sink. Do you see a lot of dust inside? Blow off dust using canned air. Clean the heat sink and test the laptop again. There is a good chance that cleaning the heat sink will fix your problem.
February 24th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Rob,
This is a really weird problem. Sounds like a 3G device damaged the motherboard somehow.
February 24th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
From Post 108.
Hi guys, i can report that the problem with my Aspire 5610 must be the controller on the hard drive. I installed a new 160GB sata Samsung drive and the machine boots correctly and straight away. Unlike needing a second start as in the past. Thanks for your advice. Now I am happy again..
Tim