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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 29th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Well so much for the pcmcia route for SSD on the old Acer.
Turns out the cable from the pcmcia raid controller to the SSD is not firmly connected. Several times it has resulted in no connection adn dead pc. As of now I have scrapped the pcmcia and are now looking into the caddy way again.
I will try to put sata SSD into the caddy via a Pata to Sata Adapter. http://www.cooldrives.com/2sahadrtoide.html
I am not sure if this will work for i dont have the excact messures for the caddy. But as soon as I have the hardware delivered I will try.
If anyone has done this allready pls let me know how it worked.
December 29th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Max,
Take a closer look at the cooling fan. Does it start spinning at all? Maybe the cooling fan is bad and the laptop runs hot because of that.
December 29th, 2010 at 8:57 am
Thanks for the guide, I had one of these laptops and they are one of the easier brands to work on.
December 29th, 2010 at 3:40 am
Okay, thanks. I applied a new thermal grease, but the temperatures are still around 75°C on full load and the computer is sluggish. So a new fan should solve it, shouldn’t it?
December 27th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Max,
Sounds like it’s time to replace the fan. Apparently the fan bearing is damaged and because of that the fan will not kick in by itself.
December 27th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
I have problems with overheating on Aspire 5100. I cleaned out the dust from the fan about a year ago. It worked fine, but now the fan wont kick on. I mean I have to take the cover off and spin it manually until it spins by itself. The overheating is probably also caused by the old thermal compound on my processor, which I will change tommorow, but having to spin the fan everytime I turn on the computer is pretty annoying.
I had problems with the fan being slow before and I also had to spin it manually, but it eventually began to spin without my help. But this time its been like two months and I still have to spin it Any idea whats wrong?
December 16th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Jamie,
Have you scan the laptop for viruses/spyware.
If it’s not infected, probably this is some kind of software related problem.
Create another user (admin), transfer data from the old account to the new one. Delete the old account.
December 16th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Hi there,
I have an Acer 5100. I have 2 users setup on this laptop and for some reason the second user cannot alter any of the default power settings in the power settings tool. Even with both users set to Admin the first one works fine but the second one switches back to default as soon as its changed. Any help would be great.
Also I was wondering if the laptop will support windows 7. Thanks!
December 13th, 2010 at 7:13 am
Kevin McCabe,
Yes, it’s necessary to disassemble the whole think and remove the motherboard.
Take a look at the comment 618. I posted a link to the official service manual in there.
Also, the following DC jack replacement instructions will be helpful too: http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2007/12/06/dc-power-jack-repair-guide/
December 13th, 2010 at 6:13 am
I am trying to replace laptop dc jack socket on my acer aspire 5100 . do I have to take everything apart to get to the mother board?