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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.
March 29th, 2009 at 9:46 am
John,
I don’t think so. I believe the video card is integrated into the motherboard and you cannot remove/replace/upgrade the card. You are stuck with what you have.
March 29th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Vida,
In most laptops the eithernet port is soldered to the motherboard. In order to find out what is wrong you’ll have to disassemble the laptop and take a closer look. Can you do it yourself? If not, I would take the laptop to a professional repair shop.
March 28th, 2009 at 4:31 am
Update: Using another machine in my household, I created a Ubuntu install disc, and ran a user session on my Acer Aspire 5100 from the DVD drive. After logging in as root, I copied the SATA drive to device null, expecting to encounter a slew of hardware errors. There were none! My best guess now is that I’m infected with a virus of some sort.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:20 am
FOOTNOTE:
Before attempting to restore the drive using the default recovery image, I backed up my crucial data using a SATA enclosure to another machine
March 27th, 2009 at 4:53 am
Short version: I think I’m screwed.
Longer version: Haven’t been able to boot my system for 18 hrs or so. In SAFE mode, the list of system files always halts at agpCPQ.sys. My bonehead guess would be that the next file is trashed. WORST: When I try to launch D2D recovery using ALT-F10 (having checked BIOS for D2D enabled), I get a brief msg indicating that the system is entering recovery mode, but then–the WINXP load logo, and things grind to a halt. Have attempted disconnecting/reinstalling the battery; the hard drive; the memory sticks.
Any thoughts???
March 25th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Thanks laptop tech for ur respond…
No, I cant…I couldnt get into the bios setup…all keys on board didn’t work anything…because i shut the power off at BIOS, now after booting, the windows error recovery appeared but still i couldnt choose any option…then it entered to startup repair command box…but still i couldnt do anything about it…
I dont know if the warranty is still valid or not…currently, i live in Indonesia but this laptop was sent from US…My brother bought this laptop around 1,5 years ago and he doesnt know where the book warranty is…
But, I got info that Acer has Acer Care Service in my city…maybe, i’d like to give them a call..
thx
March 25th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Hey,
I have a Acer Aspire 5100-5023 with a ATI Radeon Xpress 1100. Is it possible to upgrade it to something better? If it is any suggestions. Thank you.
John
March 25th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Hello,
I must say I was very happy to have found your site and to read some of the upgrades that I can do for my Acer!! Thank you
about a week ago I was plugged into the internet w a wired cnction, i tripped and the ethernet cable was ripped out of the port on the side of the comp. now if i try to cnct to the internet through the same port the green light by the port only lights up 10% of the time… if that. If the ethernet cable is plugged im no longer able to cnct to the int. Do you think this may be something i can fix myself like replacing the port?? or would I be wiser to take it into a comp prefessional?
Thanks for your time, Vida
March 24th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Bob,
Yep, that would be the first think to try if your laptop stopped booting. It works well and not only on Acer laptops.
What causes it? I don’t know.
March 24th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Dhanta,
Can you enter the BIOS setup menu and try using the keyboard in BIOS. Can you? If the keyboard doesn’t work in BIOS, most likely it’s a hardware related problem.
Is it still under warranty? If yes, definitely send it for repair to Acer.