how to take apart the Acer Aspire 5003 WLMi?

I'm getting ready to change the thermal paste on the cpu right now, and I'm trying to get the bottom cover off.

I unscrewed all the screws on the bottom cover, took off all the panels, but the cover still wont come off.

Anybody got a diagram or anything that could help me take this stupid cover off?

 

There may be screws or other clamps that are on the inside of the case which you cannot see so I wouldn't try to force it if it does come off.

Inorder to do what you want to do safely I would suggest you try to track down the service manual for the aspire 5000 series. That will show you exactly how to take apart the system change whatever you want and successfully put it back together.

 

ok, I've managed to take it apart, and got the cpu out, along with the heatsink or northbridge, or whatever the hell its called.

Anmyways, now I'm ready to change the thermal paste, the only thing is, where the hell does it go?

I took a couple pics:

 

Thin layer of the thermal paste goes on the CPU (already seated in the socket)- than you install the heatpipe again.

 

ok, im maaad pisssed off right now, and let me tell you something

I'M NEVER BUYING AN ACER PRODUCT AGAIN!

I went ahead and took off that shiny rectangle in the middle of the black thing, cleaned out the old paste, and put some new artic silver 5 in there.

I noticed that the cpu didn't have any thermal paste, so i decided not to put it there, and decided to put it on the bridge like I did.

As I was putting the bridge back together, it turned out that i used too much paste, and it smudged all over the place, so I took out the bridge again, and also the processor to clean it with alcohol.

As I was cleaning the cpu, I accidently spilled alot of alcohol onto the cpu, and it got really wet, along with the pins on the bottom. I wiped it down the best I could, and then dried it with a fan, but now I doubt that its gonna work again.

I ****ing hate acer and hate the fact that they made this piece of **** laptop so ****ing hard to take apart.

if this **** doesn't work, then I'm just gonna throw it out as it's ****ing useless to me.

 

First of all it's not ACER's fault you did what you did. If you don't know how to do sth it's better to hand it over to ACER support. Their fault is 5000 have thermal problems though and you're right you shouldn't even deal with it.
Second thing- nothing will happen- when the thing gets dry again it's gonna work, unless you switch it on when it's still wet...

Now once again- thin layer on the CPU. Thin like in barely anything. Use some old credit card to apply it evenly.

 

None of this is acer's fault you did what you did and didn't bother to wait for someone to answer your questions. You openly said that you "accidentally spilled alcohol and used too much paste" so tell me how is any of this acer's fault ? As I told you in my previous post a service manual would have given you a step by step guide for doing this and barring you using too much paste your notebook would be back together now and your new processor in place. Notebooks aren't hard to take apart if you have that manual trust me on this I have the manual for my 5102 and it details everything. Technicians use the service manuals so why shouldn't you.

I always advise people who are not sure of what they are doing to leave it to a (acer)technician who knows what to do and not try to do things themselves and then mess things up. It is true the aspire 5000 series is known to have thermal issues and acer knows this, so that part isn't your fault but you should let them sort it and not just go trying something you weren't really sure about.

However alcohol is a volatile liquid and your processor might still be fine let it dry out completely and then do as downloads told you to do, and lets hope that it still works. Remember CPU thermal grease is not to be plastered on in large amounts, use a very thin layer and it must be applied to the CPU itself.

 

So I put back the laptop best I could, and what do ya know, it doesn't even turn on now.

I'm pretty sure I messed something up while putting it back together.

but anyways, I noticed that before I put the keyboard back in, there were 2 connectors on the board, on the left was a small one for the speakers, and then a little further to the right was another bigger connector, it was just to the right of the keyboard connector. I couldn't remember what the hell goes to that connector....

But, I have good news too, I went to Notebooksolutions.ca, and purchased a service manual for $5.99 since I couldn't find it anywhere else. But, this service manual is the same for Aspire 3000, 3500, an 5000. So as I was looking through the manual, some of the pictures were from the aspire 3000 which did NOT help me at all, and now I'm kinda of pissed off...

Anyways, I'm gonna give this one more try, and take apart the laptop again according to the service manual, and then put it back together.

WISH ME LUCK

 

UPDATE:

I took apart the laptop again, this time using the service manual that I bought, and I took it apart completly.

I finally got to the aluminum heatsink and just have a couple questions.

I want to put some thermal paste on this heatsink too cool off the graphics card (SiS M760GX), so do I put the thermal paste on the card or on the bottom of the heatsink?

The reason I'm asking this is because there's some strange type of gray film attached to the bottom of this heatsink:



So do I put the thermal paste right no the graphics card, and then just reattach the heatsink? or do I take the gray film off, and still put the thermal paste on the graphics card?

Here's another pic of how it looks right now:

 

Where does one get the service manual for the laptop. I bought the fan and heat sink module but don't have the repair manual.

Thanks,

Bob

 

I actually bought a complete copy of the service manual for $20, I can send you a copy when I get home tonight.

 

clean off that "gray Film",
now Clean the surface where the film was with alcohol, also clean the GPU chip with a slightly moist (w/ alcohol) papertowel... now that everything is clean....
put and EXTREEMLY SMALL ammount (1/2 the size of a grain of rice) of the thermal compound on the center of the GPU or what ever chip it is you are working with,,, replace heatsink, and screws....

wait a minute,,, remove the heatsink,, make sure you have the top of the chip covered with compound, just a thin coat is all you need, more only hurts. and its not fun to clean up!

if the chip is properly covered reassemble everthing.... if there was too much applied in the beginning, clean off excess and then reassemble.

goodluck,
bigozone