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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.
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.
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December 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
Emily,
Check the memory module. Maybe it popped up from the slot. Try reconnecting the module.
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:04 am
Hi,
I dropped a book on my open laptop on the key board. the screen went blank and when i boot it up the screen is still black. I tried hooking it up to an external monitor. nothing happened. the hard drive light doesnt flicker and when i touch the caps lock key and the numlock key nothing happens.
Help?
Thank you
December 20th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
HNKelley,
Did she drop the laptop with the adapter connected? Maybe the power jack is damaged and has to be re-soldered or replaced?
I don’t think so. You said the laptop turns on when you press on the power button. Apparently, the power button board is working properly.
December 19th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
(in addition to the comment above)
lol sorry
the back is still connected by two little wires that go through a hinge on the left side of the base of the computer though. do you think it should just screw back on once i get a new screen?
December 19th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
hello,
your website helped a lot, thank you.
i have a question though.. I am trying to replace a cracked acer 5100 screen and I think i did everything right. However the BACK of the laptop pop’ed off when I was trying to remove the screen. I dont think it pop’ed off by me doing anything wrong to it, is this normal? I dont want to go on a buy a whole new screen if the back of the computer is broke now.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Thank you for this web site and the Acer instructions. Great stuff!
I’m repairing a laptop for a co-worker, an Acer Aspire BL51. She DROPPED the poor thing and the screen came completely off, the WiFi wires broke,and the camera wires broke.
I fixed the screen easily enough by building brackets for the hinges; the cable was OK. The other wires will be easy for me.
But there is a new twist… The battery ran out of juice, so she gave me the charger. It didn’t help, so I tested it and found it was broken. She sent me her other charger, which I tested and know to be working. With it plugged in, the laptop still would not power up, so I let it charge for more than 24 hours. Still will not power up. I tested with the battery in and with the battery out, but no go. What happens when I press the power button is the power light comes on and the fan starts up, then, after about a second, it all shuts off. That’s it, nothing more. The laptop was working fine before the battery ran out. I had reconnected the screen for testing and all seemed fine. I can find no loose connections and there is no loose junk inside (I removed something that looked like a pair of super-sized cat claws made of plastic.)
Any suggestions? Is there something about the panel at the top edge of the keyboard which contains the power button, etc. that is critical? I know there is a little button there that tells the laptop the screen is closed. That switch works fine. Surrounding that button, but not touching it, is some foil that seems to be a ground point that should be touching matching ground points on the body of the laptop like a jumper. Jumpering those points did not help.
Any ideas you can give would really be helpful! Thanks.
HNKelley
December 17th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Tom,
Maybe in the service manual? Comment 36.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Is there a manual availeble for installing bluetooth (internal)? Because i’ve got the button, but the hardware is just forgotten
December 17th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Hy,
I’ve got problems with my usb. All ports seemes to be dead. It’s the same laptop with yours, do you have any idea how to repair them? They appear in windows but when i plug some device in one of them stops and say unrecognized device. I’ve read a lot of posts about usb on acer and seems that is a big problem. Do you have any idea on this? Could they be disabled or changed without to change motherboard?
Thanks,
Vali
December 15th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Oh man, thank you so much. Such a simple suggestion solved my touchpad problem. Sometimes you get stuck in comfortable routines. I repair desktop and laptops. The touchpad on my new-to-me Acer Aspire 5100 stopped working, except right at the desktop for a couple of seconds at bot. I’ve been trying to resolve this for 3 days. I had no idea there was a ‘fn’ toggle to disable it, right there in front of me on the ‘f7′ key! Thanks a bunch, dude!
December 14th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Jim,
That’s a good idea to recover files from the hard drive.
1. Purchase an external USB enclosure for notebook hard drives.
2. Remove hard drive from the failed laptop and install it into the enclosure.
3. Connect the enclosure to any working computer via USB and wait until your hard drive is detected and installed.
4. Transfer files.
December 14th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Tim,
I would call Acer and purchase a new set of recovery discs from them. It shouldn’t be very expensive.
December 13th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
The only keyboard that will connect is a usb. I have tried an external usb keyboard and it will not work. This problem has been a first for me. I guess I will need to get an usb hookup for the hard drive.
December 13th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Hello, I have a acer 5100 and I was wondering if I can reformat a laptop hard drive with a desktop computer? I made a back up CD of my acer but it won’t accept it. I screwed up by putting in a partition and put windows vista on it so I had wind XP & vista. The vista was slowing the computer down bad so I used partition magic 8.0 to delete the vista partition and now I can’t enter my windows XP. Can I use the back up CD I made of the hard drive and reformat it through my desktop? Thanks for the help
December 13th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Jim,
I don’t think it’s a software related problem. If the keyboard is not working on startup, apparently there is something wrong with the hardware (probably motherboard related).
Do you have an external keyboard for this laptop? You can try booting with an external keyboard and access the BIOS setup menu. Set BIOS to defaults.
December 13th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Keyboard is NOT working on boot up.
December 13th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Jim,
First of all try this. Restart the laptop and press F8 when laptop starts. It should take it to the boot menu. Select “Last Known Good Configuration” and restart the laptop. Can you boot now?
December 13th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Laptop was loading xp service pack 3 and upon restart went through startup sequence and stopped at window login. Keyboard, touchpad, usb ports donot work. I can’t login. Will not boot CD either. HD seems to start fine, just all input devices disabled. Help!!!
December 10th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Shay,
Could be software related problem. Here’s what you can try.
1.Press F8 button on startup and it will take you to the boot menu. Select “Last Known Good Configuration” and press Enter.
2. Try reimaging the hard drive using the recovery process. This will take your laptop back to factory defaults.
3. Run diagnostics test on the hard drive. You’ll find many HDD testing tools in the Ultimate Boot CD.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:13 am
My acer 5100 starts to boot up but it hits a black screen and it keeps reloading that page. Form my research it seems like the hard drive is dead. Is this the problem or is it something else?
December 8th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Doris,
Could be a software related problem, maybe your laptop is infected with a trojan or spyware.
Instead or replacing the hardware, I would try to reinstall software first.
Backup all personal files and reimage the hard drive back to factory defaults from the recovery disc. This will take your laptop back to the original default state and you can start from scratch.
December 7th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
This is a wonderful site,thanks for it.
I have an Acer Aspire 5100-5023 w/AMD Turion 64×2 @ 1.8 Ghz, Radeon Express 1100 -512mb HyperMem, 2GB DDR2. I have been trying to decide whether it is my graphics card or RAM that is unable to keep up with some of the programs I am using because at times the whole system seems to slow to a crawl. I was sure it was RAM related since the slow-down didn’t start until after I had installed Office 2007, but now I’m unsure since it happens even without Office running. Any thoughts or suggestions? I have considered changing both the RAM and graphics card, could you suggest a possible replacement for the graphics? Thanks.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
An update on my situation. I spoke with Acer tech support .. who told me it was out of warranty. Thanks Acer. They did quote me for a new mobo.
In deperation, I bought a new WD 160Gb drive to replace the new Seagate momentus 160Gb drive. I then cloned the original faulty drive to the new drive using a desktop PC ( the sata connections are the same for laptop and desktop drives ).
It now works flawlessly. Either the Seagate tools couldn’t detect the problem, or, there is some critical timing issue that was causing the problem.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Marcus Evans,
I’m not sure if an Aspire 5100 can support such a large drive.
If your laptop can support a 500GB drive, it’s not necessary to upgrade the memory. It should work fine even with 2GB.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Chris,
Here’s what I found for your. It’s the official service manual for Acer Aspire 5110/5100/3100 laptops with step-by-step disassembly instructions.
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I am trying to instsall a 500gb on an aspire 5100 will I have any problems and do i need to install 4gb mem or will 2 be sufficient
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
good instructions for this ACER 5100 laptop But are instructions available to dissassemle the rest of this laptop to access the motherboard and CPU to repair and replace them
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Matt,
I think you are missing some kind of touch pad management software. Try downloading it from the manufacturer’s website. As last resort, you can reimage the hard drive using the recovery disc. Reimaging the hard drive should take everything back to factory defaults. Do not forget to back up data first. The recovery process erases everything from the drive.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
akil,
Replacing the fan will not fix the problem, I don’t think it’s related.
Test your laptop with an external monitor. If you get vertical lines on both internal and external screen, most likely there is a problem with the graphics card.
Just in case. If you have two memory modules installed, try removing them one by one and test the laptop with each module separately. A bad memory module can cause different problems.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Great guide, waiting for RAM upgrade to arrive tomorrow and this is a big help. Have a quick question, hard drive went bust under warranty and when i got my laptop back with a new drive the touchpad wasn’t working fully. Just left click, right click and move cursor… I miss being able to use the silver scroll key and being able to scroll using the edges of the pad. Assumed a driver issue so installed latest drivers but to no avail. I’m running XP. Can anyone help? Thanks