Acer Aspire 5100 Troubleshooting

Your computer will not boot.

The first thing to check if your computer won't boot is if your operating system has become corrupt. Try reinstalling the OS and see if this solves the problem. If the laptop still will not boot, there is probably a hardware issue.

If your computer beeps three times, there is a RAM issue. Either you have insufficient RAM to boot, or the RAM you do have is faulty. First, access the RAM slots and ensure you have RAM installed. Here is the page on how to access your RAM. This link will also show you how to install the RAM. If you have two chips, first reset them and try again. If that doesn't work, try one chip at a time to see if one of the chips prevents the machine from booting. If none of these work, you may have a bad logic board.

A bad hard drive would prevent the computer from being able to boot the operating system and associated programs.

See the device page for information about how to replace and/or upgrade the hard drive for your Aspire.

As soon as you unplug the computer from a power source, it shuts off.

The first thing to do if your computer will not run without being connected to AC power is to make sure that your battery is charged up. Allow the computer to charge for awhile and then see if this solves the problem.

If charging the battery doesn't seem to help the problem, it may be necessary to replace the battery completely. Check the parts section of the device page for information on where to find a replacement battery. Since this type of laptop are no longer manufacture, you can find batteries here.

If replacing the battery with a new one doesn't solve the problem, then it is possible that there is a problem with the southbridge chipset on the motherboard of the laptop. See the guide on motherboard replacement for help with resolving this issue.

If the computer boots up, but nothing displays on the screen it is possible that your laptop may need a new screen. Check out the Aspire device page for information on how to replace a bad screen.

The computer boots, but the trackpad and keyboard do not work, and USB devices (such as a mouse) do not work.

Check to make sure that the track pad is not disabled. Hold the function (Fn) key and press F7. This should turn the touch pad back on. If this doesn't work try and reinstall the touch pad in windows. If this doesn't work then there is probably a hardware problem.

If the track pad doesn't respond to any of the above steps, then it is likely that it has gone bad. Check the device page for information on replacing the touch pad.

Your computer will not connect to the internet without being connected with a wire.

The first thing to do is make sure that problem lies with the laptop and not the wireless you are trying to connect to (especially home networks). Try connecting to other networks and see what happens. After verifying that the computer cannot connect to networks that are broadcasting correctly, verify that the laptop's wireless is turned on and that all of the wireless settings match that of your network. If none of this works, then you probably have a bad network adapter. See the device page for information on replacing this component.

No sound is coming from your computer when you listen to music or watch videos.

The first thing to check is that your speakers are not muted and that the sound is turned up.

Make sure that your laptop has the correct and current sound drivers downloaded and installed. If this doesn't fix the problem, there could be a hardware issue.

It's possible that the speakers in your laptop have gone bad. This is most likely if you are getting sound from one speaker and not the other. Check the device page for information on speaker replacement.

If the on-board sound card has failed, then the laptop would not be able to produce sound. Check the device page for information on laptop tear down and sound card replacement.

If all of the previous things have been checked, then there may be a problem with the computer's logic board. See the device page for information on logic board replacement.

Nothing above matches your problem, or you've tried a solution suggested above, but it didn't help.

There are many components to the laptop computer, and many different possible symptoms. If none of the above troubleshooting information seems to fix the problem with your laptop, the most likely problem is a bad logic board. Check the device page for information on logic board replacement.