The Acer Guy Forum

The Acer Guy Forum » Advice and suggestions

1. 

   Posted by: waitingInSF
   Member

   Hi, I'm sure this will be an easy question, but I need some help. I want to strip a 500 gig hard drive and the DVD burner from an Acer AM5630 and install them as secondary drives in an Acer AM5640. I've done this before on Dell desktops and it was pretty east to figure out how to remove and install secondary drives.

   In my Acer desktop, I've removed the cover and I can see the DVD drives and the hard drive, but I'm not sure how to remove the drives from the inside the computer tower. I see the series of long green plastic "rails" but I'm not sure how or what their function is. Lastly, once the 2nd DVD drive is installed - how do you remove the "default" metal/plastic face plate - so that the DVD drive can eject its DVD tray.

   I've checked the forum and haven't found any help on this. I'm sure this is simple and any help would be greatly appreciated.

   ON a completely different topic. I've tried before the swap out the Acer PSU on the AM5630 for a Corsair 400W PSU and it just caused problems. I've heard that Acer PSUs are non-standard and proprietary - any advice on whether the Acer PSU can be easily swapped out for a Corsair 400W PSU?

   Thanks,

   WaitingInSF

   Posted 1 year ago #
2. 

   Posted by: cyberion1985
   Member

   Hello waitingInSF,

   On your second note, you can place any PSU in Acer. I can recall placing an 650W Proline into a Veriton 7900 which was not a standard Acer PSU. PSU's should be universal and you only need to replace with standard Acer when it's warranty.

   Anyway, to install the HDD and the DVD should be quite straight forward - Make sure the unit is not connected to power.

   First OPEN the Box where you have the 2 big black screws on the side where the leaver is. Then, once the screws are removed, push the leaver up or down so the cover will budge so that you can open the machine. Then, remove the cover.

   Now you check for the connections that are inside the box. Check what type of connection of data cables are connected to the HDD and the DVD. Now check how many connections your PC supports on the mainboard. Usually, or most basic Acers support 4 slots for a SATA data cable connection. Others have different configurations. I don't know how your machine looks like but it might have 3 connections from your devices already.

   From inside the machine, you can remove the insde metal plate from one of the drivebays. Use plyers or tweasers to remove the plate. The green stuff should be there to lock the drives. The HDD bays should not be a problem, since you can just slide in the HDD easily OR you need to remove one of the casings, and clip the hard drive into it, then slide it back into the PC case.

   With the DVD, you have to remove the front cover first to slide the drive in from the front. To do this, remove the other side cover by removing the two screws and then sliding the sidepanelcover back. There should be black slips at the front of the PC holding the front cover to the PC. Clip these clips back individually to release the front cover. Once the front cover is off, you can then slide the DVD in the place that you've just removed the metal plate.

   Go back on the inside of the PC and check if the green lock bar where you want to install the DVD drive, is on LOCK [Move it back or front to adjust or set]. If it is on open, move the drive back through about 3 centimenters over the over drive, then switch the green back to lock and slide the drive front until it makes 'click' and the drive locks nicely in place and in paralell with the first drive.

   Now, you need to connect the power cables and the data cables (which you should connect to the device and the mainboard). Make sure your primary HDD connection stays as it is. Connect the other two data cables on the remaining available slots on the MB.If you run out of power cables, check if your additional devices support molex power connections - just remember not to connect both on one device.

   Posted 1 year ago #
3. 

   Posted by: waitingInSF
   Member

   Thanks for the help. Don't know why I was having such a hard time getting the front plate off (but I was). I've stripped the memory, the hard drive, the DVD drive out of my old ACER AM5640. Anything else left of value? I know I could try to sell the Mobo..but given that the computer was crashing a lot..I can't feel certain the problem is not hardware related.

   Regardless, thanks for the help

   Posted 1 year ago #

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