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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.
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
November 30th, 2008 at 6:07 am
My laptop has vertical lines that cause it to freeze up shortly after booting up.Thought it was a virus so i formated my system and it still happens,because my fan blew i think my processor is damaged will replacing the fan make everything ok?
November 28th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Martin,
Check the touchpad settings, maybe the touchpad is disabled.
For example, on a Toshiba laptop you can enable or disable the touchpad with Fn+F9 shortcut. Maybe you have a similar shortcut on your keyboard?
November 28th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Hi there,
the touchpad on my acer aspire 5100 tends to stop working after the system boots up. Everything in the system is telling me that it’s working correctly, but in reality it’s not working at all. Do you have any idea what could be wrong?
November 27th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Tunde,
First of all check the power adapter. Could be damaged cable inside the power cord.
Also it’s possible that you have bad battery.
If there is a problem with the power jack, you’ll have to remove the motherboard and resolder the jack. You’ll find laptop disassembly instructions in the official service manual.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I have a compaq nc6400…the charging point on the mobo won’t charge my battery.
pls anything i can do to correct this?