How to Remove Stripped Laptop/#0 Screws (And I How I Increased My Respect For Flathead Screwdrivers)

If you're a DIY-er, a fixer or a techy fiddler, it's probably happened to you. And it's bloody annoying. Stripped heads on Phillips screws.

It happened to me yesterday while trying to add more RAM to my recently acquired Portégé. Annoyingly, as is the trend with ultrabooks, the RAM is only accessible by removing the entire back of the laptop, as opposed to unscrewing a memory panel. Anyway, I get to the last screw - it must have been a bit tight - and lo and behold, the Phillips cross becomes more of a star.

After being frustrated for long enough that night, I screwed all the other screws back in and left it for the night (in the process, the second-last screw got stripped as well). This morning I went to Bunnings to get a screw extractor. It seemed quite a handy tool. Of course, it didn't work.

However, after reading about numerous methods of how to resolve screw problems, I sort of did my own thing.

TL;DR

I finally managed to get the screws out by selecting the second- or third-smallest drill bit and drilling into the screw a bit, also aiming to make the "hole" wide enough to accommodate my smallest flathead screwdriver. After a minute or so of careful drilling, I stuck in the flathead screwdriver (on a bit of an angle so that it could catch properly on the screw head) and turned it with great strength until the screw was loose enough to be twisted out with a pair of tweezers (as my pliers were too thick).

I certainly underestimated the power of the flathead screwdriver!

PS: If you're coming here from Google, 1) Thank you and 2) I hope this helped!

~LP

When I Didn't Buy Enough Laptops

Bring Back Toshiba

This started a few months ago when I was buying parts for my desktop at a computer shop. I overheard one of the salespeople saying that they had low stock for Toshiba laptops as the future of the brand was uncertain.

Now, since my first Toshiba laptop - a Satellite Pro L300 - I have been a great fan of Toshiba. In fact, I'm on my third. So this rumour was a little unsavoury to hear.

Thus, when I left the shop I had to get on to the internet and look up the rumour. It was indeed plausible based on the articles I found.

Time passed and different articles started appearing suggesting Toshiba would enter a deal with Fujitsu to continue making consumer laptops. It appears that this deal has since been put to rest.

The sad truth is Toshiba is stopping production of consumer laptops because they claim to be losing money from them. There is good news for businesses though: Toshiba is still going to be making business laptops.

To make matters worse, I now have no idea what laptop I should could get when the time comes to get a new one. And that's because Toshiba laptops just make sense. The keys are the right size, the spacing is near-perfect, the design doesn't "try too hard" and most of them still have DVD drives. (They're still handy to have.)

HP could be a possibility, but the up/down arrow keys are a completely different size to the left/right arrow keys. Asus... They're just not the same. And Acer isn't renowned for reliability. And when it comes to Lenovo, let's just say I will probably never go there.

Perhaps as equally upsetting is that I will now no longer be able to own my dream laptop: a Qosmio.

Unfortunately, I just didn't buy enough Toshiba laptops to save them. I thought they'd always be there, and I'm sure many others did too.

We'll miss you, Satellite.

~LP