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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.
January 17th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
@ Brent,
Probably this is motherboard related issue. Before you give up, test your laptop with Ubuntu OS (live Linux CD).
Burn Ubuntu OS on a CD and boot your laptop from it. Test all USB ports in Ubuntu OS. If they still do not work, probably this is motherboard issue.
In this case you can buy a PCMCIA USB card, plug it into the PC slot and get working USB ports.
If USB ports work in Ubuntu OS but not Windows OS, try reinstalling Windows OS.
January 17th, 2012 at 6:09 am
This is very helpfull. thank you guys.
January 16th, 2012 at 10:15 pm
I have this laptop recently the usb ports stopped working displays message usb device not recognized have checked out the device manager one of the root hubs has changed to device unknown i have disabled and enable the drivers uninstalled the drivers and restarted the computer many times also checked the acer web site for new drivers but no sign of anything useful any help would be great
January 11th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
@ KK,
I think you are correct, there is a problem with the Acer laptop and unfortunately I think this problem is motherboard related.
It’s possible the motherboard has a micro crack and that’s why it’s failing when you move the laptop (you basically flex the motherboard).
This is an older laptop and I don’t think it’s worth the motherboard replacement. Sorry for a bad news.
Nope, it doesn’t sound like BIOS related issue. I’m pretty sure this is hardware related problem.
January 9th, 2012 at 7:35 am
Hi
I have an Acer Aspire 5100 laptop running Windows vista. The laptop was never dropped or was subjected to any physical abuse. Off late it started to reboot all of a sudden and it will not find its hard disk.
I removed the harddisk (let us call H1) (SATA) from it and swapped it on a HP Laptop (having a hard disk H2) which took a similar form factor hard disk. The HP machine was happy enough to recognise this hard disk (H1) and continue to work with out any problems.
I took Hard disk H2 from HP laptop and fitted it on the Acer Laptop . Even after this the Acer reboots and doesn’t find its hard disk now and then. i.e if you leave the laptop switched off and stationary for 2 hours – when you boot, the laptop will find its hard disk.
So I deduced it is a problem with the Acer Laptop rather than the hard disk.
If you move the acer laptop or do something to its physical position (this also depends, some times it doesn’t matter even if you move, it keeps working) the Acer stops recognising the hard disk (irrespective of which ever hard disks) – The BIOS itself doesn’t show the Hard disk.
However after 2 hours of rest or something similar (after poweing off the laptop) – the laptop finds its hard disk and boots. Once booted if you don’t move it – it keeps working as long as you want or when it stops finding the hard disk due to some minor movement. Once it starts to have a IO problem , rebooting the machine however many times won’t find the hard disk once it starts to miss its hard disk – but after 1 or 2 hours it does find its hard disk ( no physical effort is needed).
The Acer is working with out any problems for days together if I am using a USB stick to boot and work with Linux which is on the USB stick.
I am making a wild guess that there is some connector problem between the hard disk and the control board – however the hard disk slots pretty well in the area it is supposed to fit.
I presume that the connection errors is on the other end (the connector to the board). Is it something fixable at home – what am I supposed to look for?
Or is it some bios issue? I have the latest BIOS available for this model from Acer website.
Any help is appreciated.
January 5th, 2012 at 1:33 pm
@ Jay,
If the virus is so bad, most likely you’ll have to reinstall OS from scratch. I would suggest reinstalling the OS just to make sure it’s virus free. You can backup data using an external USB enclosure.
If it’s not a SATA hard drive than it must be IDE hard drive.
Here’s the difference: http://www.laptopparts101.com/hard-drive/
Also, read this guide for data backup tips: http://www.insidemylaptop.com/recover-files-from-broken-laptop/
January 5th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
Hello. I have a virus on my hard drive (despite having Norton installed) and cannot boot the laptop. I have tried a number of things and having read a different website am going to try to mount the hard drive as an external drive to get rid of the virus. I purchased a SATA enclosure but it does not have the right connector. Can you please help me understand exactly what HDD is installed on Acer Aspire 5100 and what enclosure I should get?
Thank you in advance for your assistance.
Jay
December 29th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Bo,
Do it say that when you try to run the executable file?
Is it located in a zipped folder? Have you tried unzipping it and run from the unzipped folder?
Just a guess.
December 29th, 2011 at 6:06 am
Trying to reinstall ATI driver on Acer Aspire 5100. Tells me the path is too long. Must shorten. ATI websight tells me it’s an ATI graphics1100. Thanks.
December 23rd, 2011 at 3:05 pm
@ Sam,
Probably motherboard related failure.
Try removing wireless card, hard drive, disconnecting the keyboard. Turn on after that. If the message still there, I think this is bad motherboard.