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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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January 5th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I have an aspire 5100. It crashes everytime it goes into windows. Won’t open in safe mode. Bios password protected I don’t know the password. Tried some standard back door passwords no luck. For $150.00 Acer will remove something off the hard drive which we remove the bios password. Someone mention something about jumpers but I don’t have any idea. I have a windows xp disk but I can’t access the cd drive. Anyone have any ideas or potential backdoors for Phoniex bios.
January 5th, 2009 at 7:55 am
My 5101AWLMi originally had one 512 MB RAM stick.
I just installed an upgrade from Crucial (2 x 1GB sticks).
It only reports 1GB of RAM though. Any thoughts why it only sees half of the new memory ?
January 5th, 2009 at 12:38 am
Michael Burgess,
I believe you’ll have to disassemble the whole laptop and remove the motherboard. I think the CMOS battery is soldered to the motherboard.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:31 am
ray,
Sounds like a software problem and you’ll have to reinstall the operating system. Call Acer and purchase the recovery disc from them, it shouldn’t be very expensive. Run the recovery disc and reinstall everything back to factory defaults. It should fix the problem.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:26 am
ian,
Also, that could be memory related problem. Run memory test and see if it comes with errors.
If you have two RAM modules installed test your laptop with each module separately. Remove one and test the laptop, then remove the second one and test again. Does it fail the same way with only one module installed?
January 4th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
hello hope u can help me,i’ve just been give acer 5100.half the programmes wont open keep get loads of errors, sorry to say but know very little about computers, have no recovery disc tired systems recovery no joy. tired tuneup 2009.
thank you.
January 4th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I need to find and replace the CMOS battery. Is this possible without sending it back to Acer?
January 4th, 2009 at 5:15 am
Thanks a lot,
Now I had the guts to open it, however I think its too late, my USB ports and cam are dead, I think due overheating:S
I watched my cooler of the laptop, and indeed it was full with dust… AND!!!!! The dust was black…. How strange…
Thanks anyway
January 4th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Thanks for the reply Laptop Tech.
Will try disconecting the internal keyboard and check.
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Heat related issue? Can you hear the fan spinning? Maybe the fan stopped working and the laptop freezes because of overheating. Check the fan.
yes the fun is working when it happens, the thing is, windows didn’t hang when it happens cause when i press the power button windows shutsdown normaly..
:/
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:53 pm
hussain,
Sounds like you have stuck keys. If that’s the case you’ll have to replace the keyboard. Yes, it is a hardware failure.
I don’t think that you can disable the keyboard through software or BIOS settings, but you can disconnect the internal keyboard cable from the motherboard and use just an external keyboard.
By the way, if you still have the same issue when the internal keyboard is disconnected from the motherboard, there could be a problem with the keyboard controller on the motherboard. In this case you’ll have to replace the whole motherboard.
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Ian,
Heat related issue? Can you hear the fan spinning? Maybe the fan stopped working and the laptop freezes because of overheating. Check the fan.
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Daryl Miller,
Yes, you can do that with an external USB enclosure.
1. Remove the hard drive from your laptop.
2. Purchase an external USB enclosure for notebook hard drives in any local computer store for about $20-30 or even cheap online. Make sure the enclosure matches your hard drive. If you have a SATA drive, you’ll have to purchase enclosure for SATA drives.
3. Install your hard drive into the enclosure.
4. Connect this enclosure to any other working computer.
5. The hard drive will pop up in “My Computer”. Now you can access your data and save it.
No, normally replacing motherboard doesn’t require reimaging the hard drive.
January 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
usguvna,
Yep, could be memory problem. Do you have two memory modules installed? Try removing them one by one. The laptop should start when a good working module is installed. When you find which one is faulty, you can replace it with a new one.
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:42 am
Nice Guide.
My Acer Aspire 5635 WLMi keys, (minus) key and (apostrophe) key behave strangely. Whenever a textbox is made activate these two keys start typing automatically into the textbox continously.
1) Is it a hardware fault?
2) I have connected a external keyboard and the problem persists as the built-in keyboard is active. So can i disable the built-in keyboard. I run WinXP.
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:03 am
hi i have a problem with my acer aspire 5100…i can only use it for 2 hours max! after 2hrs of use the mouse, keyboard wont respond anymore and the sound stop working too…when i turn it off and on again there’ll be no display. but if i let it off for a couple of hours and turn it on again its back to normal lik nothng happened…whats the deal with it?
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Thanx Folks. You’ve saved my laptop
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:15 am
I have a laptop acer 5100 that makes a clicking noise coming from the fan. It stops sometimes, but it later goes berserk. It doesn’t sound like the hard drive. And I opened it up, cleaned out the dust and it still won’t work. There is not a computer technician guy out here to help me. Any idea? I am not sure if I need to replace the fan
December 31st, 2008 at 10:22 am
I was told today that the motherboard on my acer 5100 needs to be replaced, its under warrenty by staples, they want me to send it to them for repair. Thats fine, but all they want to do is replace the motherboard and reset the hard drive to factory settings. I have to much business stuff to loose that was not backed up from December. Any chance that the harddrive can be saved or pulled and installed in another computer to retrieve documents? Will replacing motherboard require resetting harddrive? Thanks
December 31st, 2008 at 1:46 am
Also I did try connecting to an external monitor but didn’t get anything screen wise.
December 31st, 2008 at 1:41 am
My ACER 5100 screen won’t come up, just a black screen. I think the computer is still working but I can’t see what I’m doing. My research shows I should replace memory (i did get a memory message about 30 minutes before this started) or the video card. Does this sound right? Where is the video card?
Thanks.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Nice site!
Didn’t see a pic of the BIOS chip. Do you have 1 or know where it’s located? I’m trying to scrub a hardrive for a customer as they forgot password for BIOS and Windows (media SP2) administrator. There is only a limited account that can’t install or uninstall software. The BIOS must be set to disable boot to USB/floppy/CD. I tried another hardrive that had XP on it and that wouldn’t work either. Tried all the normal hacks for windows admin but they don’t work. Can I replace the BIOS chip with 1 that allows boot? Please advise.
signed
Locked up tighter than…
December 28th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Hi, Has anyone replaced the motherboard for the Aspire 5100???
December 28th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Alan Mcgookin,
Not all optical driver are interchangeable. It’s possible that your new driver is configured differently. For example, your old drive was configured as “Slave”, but the new Sony drive is configured as “Cable Select” or vice versa. It’s just a guess.
When you are replacing the optical drive, it’s better to go with the factory replacement.
Can you see the DVD drive in the BIOS when the hard drive is removed?
December 27th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Hi all can someone please help we have an acer aspire 5100 we had a dvd/r drive and it stopped reading we purchased a new sony drive however it will not read post bios stage abd is not visible in the system requirements if any 1 knows how to fix please drop a line on the site kind regards
A
December 26th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Inez,
You will not loose any programs. Your programs are stored on the hard drive, not in the memory.
December 26th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I want to upgrade my computer to 4GB from 1GB but I am afraid I will lose the programs I already have. Is it possible to switch without a problem. I have acer 5100-3583
Than you for your help.
December 24th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Laptop Tech,
Thank you for the reply.
I asked about this and she said it was not connected when dropped. Following your advice, I tested the power input of the laptop and found it to be fine, so I retested the charger. Guess what… another bad charger. The laptop connector of the charger has a loose wire and the first time I tested it, I got lucky. Now I know how to make it work long enough, so I was able to finish the repairs to her laptop and get it back to her.
Thank you again for the help and keep up the great work!
HNKelley
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:11 am
Ashley,
I didn’t skip your question. I’m just not sure what you are asking about.
I guess it’s normal because you are taking it apart. Just put it back in place as it was before.
They are wireless antennas.
I don’t know. How can I tell without looking at the laptop?
By the way, did you find instructions for taking apart the display panel? I linked to it at the beginning of the post.
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 am
thanks for skipping my question!