Acer Aspire 4820TG Disassembly Manual

Need Tools:
Phillips screwdriver
Plectrum

Step 1
Removing the memory cover

The procedure is very simple. Unscrew the five screws and then use a plectrum to force the edges of the laptop to remove the cover.

I recommend that you keep the screws in the position where you found them to be sure not to miss to position them during reassembly. In any case, I have marked the different screws you will encounter with different colors.

Step 2
Removing the hard drive

In order to replace the hard disk, you have to unscrew the two screws that I have marked in the picture below.

Once this is done, you can pull off the clear plastic tab on the metal piece.

The hard drive will be free to come off after pushing it to the left (and therefore disconnected from its SATA connector)

Step 3
Removing the optical drive

Unscrew one screw and pull outward.

Step 4
Removing the RAM

Ram modules are held in place by two metal side rails. You have to push them to the outside to make sure that the module may be lifted only with the possibility to remove it.

Step 5
Removing the wireless card

The wireless card is located near the RAM module. To access it, you have to unscrew one screw and remove the two antennas.

Step 6
Removing the keyboard

Unscrew all the screws are located under the laptop. As usual, I have marked the different screws you will encounter with different colors.

On the other hand, we have to remove the keyboard. You can see small pieces of plastic. They are still going towards the outside to make sure to unlock the keyboard. I have marked their position in the picture below.

Here’s how they look seen up close.

Warning: When you pull the keyboard towards you, do not crush the ribbon cable that connects to the motherboard (you could ruin the keyboard and the motherboard connector).

There is a need to raise the black lever of the connector to pull out the keyboard ribbon cable.

At this point, you have to unscrew all other screws that were hidden by the keyboard. In addition, you have to disconnect all the cables from their connectors.

Special connectors for the free position to release the cables

This is a snap-on connector with the cable head already pulled out.

The only thing left to do is insert a shim between the top and bottom covers. I used the usual guitar pick.

There are joints to push that I’ve marked in the photos below.

I also put a photo of the view from the rear top cover should you need to replace the power on or output optical drive and one with all the screws ordered.

Step 7
Removing the Motherboard
The motherboard is held in place by only two screws.
But first, you need to disconnect the cables from their connectors.

At this point, the motherboard comes off quite easily by lifting it from the right side.

Step 8
Removing the CPU

The CPU and GPU share the same heat sink, so we will have to unscrew all the screws holding it firmly attached to both.

To remove the CPU (for a possible upgrade to Intel i5 or i7), you must now turn the black screw located on the socket counter-clockwise.

At this point, you can remove the CPU.

For more guides, check out the Acer Aspire 4820TG device page.