How To Get A Stripped Screw Out Of A Laptop

As much as we might hate to do it, sometimes we've just gotta get the screwdriver out and open up our laptop. Whether it's performing an essential upgrade, such as adding a new SSD or RAM, or just getting inside to give those overworked fans a good old cleaning, it's something that – try as we might – we can't avoid forever. Sometimes you've just gotta get hands-on with your machine!

If you only have to do it once, it might not be so bad, but sometimes you'll end up having a problematic art that means you have to repeatedly unscrew and re-tighten the same screw over and over again.

How To Remove A Stripped Screw From A Laptop

When that happens, you're running the risk of stripping the screw head out completely – after all, these screws are rarely high enough quality to be used repeatedly. What do you do when that happens?

Surely your once-proud machine can't be rendered unrepairable by a simple little screw?

Of course not! While it's certainly a pain, don't worry – there are plenty of options available to you! Give these a go, and you shouldn't have any more problems with stripped screws!

Rubber Band

A stripped screw head doesn't have any grip at all – there's simply not enough material in the screw head for a screwdriver to grip onto.

Try as you might, you just can't get any purchase on it – and, in fact, trying to use brute force to try to get a screwdriver to grip a stripped screw head can cause even more damage to the screw!

No, a little bit of cunning and brains are what's needed here.

We've gotta find a way to fill in those gaps, so that the screwdriver can get some grip. One place to start is with the humble rubber band.

Take a decent sized rubber band with a little bit of width to it – it needs to be the "flat" sort of rubber band. Those other rubber bands that aren't flat just aren't going to do the job here.

Take the rubber band and hold it over the tip of your screwdriver, almost as if you're trying to poke the screwdriver through it. You're not, though, so don't! Instead, you're going to use the flexible rubber band as a filler material.

The rough shape of the screwdriver is still there, but it's been made a little bigger by the rubber band.

This is a great way to get a little bit of extra grip on the head of your screwdriver – and it doesn't mean doing much work or spending much money!

Rubber Glove

Of course, this might be a little cumbersome – holding the rubber band over the end of your screwdriver might be a little fiddly, and if you have issues with dexterity, it could well prove to be a non-starter.

In this case, you might be able to accomplish the same thing simply by putting the screwdriver inside a rubber kitchen glove instead! You can simply put the head of the screwdriver inside one of the fingers of the glove, using that to get additional purchase in the same way as using a rubber band on the tip.

You could also try different thicknesses of glove, if you have them – just be careful to not poke holes through any gloves that you're hoping to clean any messes up with later on!

Left Handed Drill Bit

If these methods haven't worked out for you, however, it's time to get a little more serious.

You can get left handed drill bits, which as the name implies are designed to be spun counterclockwise – the opposite way to regular drill bits.

This will let them physically bite into the screw material, compared to using a rubber band or glove to fill out the gaps in the head – but will also mean that, as they bite in and grip on to the screw, they're also turning it in the direction to loosen and remove it! These are great tools for troublesome tasks such as this.

Screw Extractor Bit

An alternative to the left handed drill bit is to buy a dedicated screw extractor bit.

These usually come in a pack with a variety of sizes, and while, just like the left handed screw bit, they won't not be the sort of tool you use every day (unless you're having some REALLY bad luck with screws!), they're just the sort of tool that you'll be thankful to have on hand on a cold wet Sunday when all the shops are shut but you still need to get a screw out of a troublesome laptop.

Just like with the left-handed screw bits, these are going to bite into the metal of the screw directly, giving you a much firmer connection on the screw head than a screwdriver could provide under the best of circumstances. This is a great way to get a problem screw right out of the way.

Epoxy/Superglue

Finally, you could use epoxy or super glue to affix something to the stripped screw head. Epoxy is probably going to give you a stronger connection, but usually takes quite a bit longer to set.

Depending on the circumstance, you could try gluing another screw on top of the stripped screw, to have something extra to grip onto – or even affix a screwdriver directly into the stripped screw head.

After all, you can't get much more grip than chemically bonding the pieces together!

This could well, of course, result in the sacrifice of the screwdriver, so be prepared to throw it away after use if you can't cleanly remove the screw and glue/epoxy afterwards – but that could well be a very small price to pay compared to not being able to repair your laptop!

Conclusion

In most cases, you're going to want to replace that screw right away, once it's out!

You don't want to have to go through this ever again with that same screw – a stitch in time saves nine, so once it's out, get rid of it and put a good screw in its place!

While a stripped screw head on your precious laptop can well make you panic – you needn't! Hopefully this guide will have put you on the right path to getting your machine open. Good luck!

About the author

At LinuxHint we have a specialized team focused on studying the Laptop Computer market and writing about this space, providing reviews and insights to users to both make the right decisions about which laptops to purchase and also show tips and tricks on how to get the most value from your machine