Upgrading Acer Aspire 4520/cd drive not working

[falseg0d]

First: I recieved this laptop as a birthday gift a couple years back, and it is getting very slow on me. I've looked at the specs online, and it says its upgradeable to 4gb ram. Now would I be able to just go out and buy any laptop ram and stick it in there? Would I have any issues in upgrading ram?

Second: My internal cd drive just one day stopped working. If I press the button to open it, it opens, and when I close it, it sounds as if it was doing something, but nothing happens. If I try to find the drive, it doesn't show up anywhere. I have spent countless hours/days trying to solve this. Does anyone know how to fix it? I know this is a common problem, with common solutions, but nothing has worked for me.

 

[falseg0d]

I just took (2) 1g ram from a friends dead laptop, put it in, and it worked. So I'm guessing yes.

 

[Guest]

I`m having the same issues you had, about the slow motion working was solved as you did, increasing the ram memory, and still i have the situation with the Dvd-rom driver, still is not working at all, what you did to turn it back on track,... mine had the same, never worked since get the laptop.....I really would like you help me or some body else who has the answer...
Thanks in Advance
Gkipping@gmail.com

 

[falseg0d]

I`m having the same issues you had, about the slow motion working was solved as you did, increasing the ram memory, and still i have the situation with the Dvd-rom driver, still is not working at all, what you did to turn it back on track,... mine had the same, never worked since get the laptop.....I really would like you help me or some body else who has the answer...
Thanks in Advance
Gkipping@gmail.com

I never got a solution to that, I'm thinking sometimes laptop cd drives just die a lot quicker than desktop drives. I accidentally cloned over my old hard drive so I ordered an external usb cd drive for it in order to fix it.
You can go on ebay and get one for like 10 dollars shipping included. I'll tell you how it works out.

 

[hopalong]

took mine apart found the lagerst pins on the battery connector needed reflowing then cover them with something to prevent shorting ,Then i reflowed the solder on each one of the pins on the underside of the dvd connector be very careful use a fin tipped soldering iron and a magnifying glass to see what you are doing ,i also while it was apart added a new cooling block under the graphics chip cover and new thermal paste to the cpu and cleaned the fan and heatsink of dust .
with the reflow around the pins on the dvd connection the drive is now showing in both bios and system ,did a recovery and is now running sweet.
mine went trough a magor earthquake and sustained damage from that but the dvd pins are what looks like from new as alot seam to have the same fault .
hope this helps someone else