A keyboard may need to be replaced due to a malfunction or an accidental spill of some kind of liquid on the keyboard. This guide uses an Acer Aspire 5315 as an example but the steps will generally work with most Acer laptops. I must advise that the memory bay/PCI cover does not need to be removed to replace the keyboard. By the way it is a pain to get off and only needs to be removed if you are upgrading RAM or adding a new PCI card. As a first step remove the battery and unplug the AC adapter form the wall and the laptop. After removing the battery find the screws in the battery bay and remove them.

The screws hold the cover of the keyboard in place. Next turn the laptop over and begin by loosening the cover directly above keyboard; it will need to be pried by another precision tool, preferably a flat head screwdriver. The cover also encompasses the power button and speakers so be very careful lifting the cover or you may pull out part of the speaker assembly. Under the cover you will find a set of clips holding the keyboard in place. Once more use your precision tools to ease the clips off, be sure not to pull to far too quickly when removing the keyboard as it is connected to the laptop via a cable.

You should have enough cable to fold the Acer laptop keyboard completely forward to remove the cable. The cable is attached through an interlocking clip mechanism like an internal fan is connected to a PC’s power supply. Gently remove the cable and then the keyboard. The only other area that can be accessed is the CPU fan from here and it can only be cleaned. Attach the new keyboard cable and proceed in reverse these steps; the keyboard backing is quite malleable and care should be taken not to bend or warp it in the process.