Re: Tight Screws

Dell, along with other brands, uses SOMETHING on its laptop screws to get them
to seat perfectly and hold tightly in place. Often, when I remove a screw,
there is a greenish residue on the screw threads. But I, too, have never met a
laptop screw that I could not unscrew... Ben Myers

On Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:38:33 -0500, RnR <rnrtexas@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008 08:28:53 +0100, "Fixer"
<steve.haberfield@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"RnR" <rnrtexas@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:j9cle4pidsrjr1qqccjhuqcbk7n4vhdgeu@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:25:22 -0400, Ron Hardin
<rhhardin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A (apparently) motherboard died in my Vostro 1500.

The chat guy asks me to remote optical drive, HD
and RAM and try powering it on.

I got the optical drive out.

I got two screws of the HD out. They were tight,
and released with a loud ``crack'' when they
started turning. Do they impact-wrench them on?

The other two screws won't loosen. Apparently
even tighter than the first two.

Anyway they started to strip in spite of my
excellent Phillips screwdriver technique.

These are really tiny tiny screws and seem to have
a not very standard phillips head.

Anyway just a complaint about the damn screws.

I'm shipping the whole thing for repair, as a
result.

I did like the casual request to remove the
memory, which is not easy, involving lifting the
keyboard somehow. But I didn't get that far.

``Remove roof and temporarily set aside'' is how
little jobs turn out to be big ones.

I only use jeweler's screwdrivers when I'm doing laptop work and had
much success so far. I personally haven't encountered any screw in a
laptop that tight but if I did, the first thing I might try is a
jeweler's screwdriver along with a set of pliers attached to it to
give me more grip to turn the screw.

I can tell you now, Dell, never ever glue their screws in, and I have Never
Ever come across a screw that can't be removed in a laptop, if you use the
correct screwdriver and the correct phillips head size


Yeah, I'm not sure why they would use glue on a screw because the
screws I've encountered seemed to be tight enough. I admit some
screws seemed tighter than others. Sometimes one method I do when I
find those tighter screws is to screw them them a fraction tighter and
then back it off to unscrew them. It seems to loosen their hold.
.

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