This is really bad, urgent help needed.

Ohh boy... where to begin.

So today I decided to apply some mx-2 cooling paste on my CPU and GPU, and I had a bit of an issue.

I unscrewed my back panel, my fan, my GPU heatsink as usual... and 3 screws out of my CPU heatsink... but the fourth won't come out.

The fourth was simply spinning in place.

Alright I thought, so I'll just put a bit of upwards pressure on it, and it'll hopefully come out that way. It didn't.

I tried everything. Pliers, screwing it in a bit tighter, then unscrewing, straight out forcing it out, anything I could try, I've tried.

The screw basically just spins in place, and when you put force on it inwards, it'll actually move into the board (its on a spring for those of you who have tried taking the M860TU apart), but it won't come out.

How do I get this thing out? Is there any way for me to lift the entire board out of the system? At this point I'm willing to take the entire thing apart. Is there any way to get at it from the other side?

Please help. At this point, my CPU doesn't seem to be making proper contact with my heatsink, and my temps shoot up any time I do something remotely taxing.

 

sounds like the screw or the standoff has gotten the threading to wear out.

I hate it when that happens.

can you take a pic and show us exactly which screw it is... we can help tell you the best way to take it out.

in any case, you should also contact your vendor to tell them about the faulty screw or standoff.... so they can send you a replacement screw or standoff.

for the time being, you can try to brace the heatsink down with folding a piece of paper thick enough to brace it down on the faulty screw when you close up the bottom panel and secure it down.

 

Here is the screw normally:
http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1403hk6.jpg

Here is the screw going into the board:
http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1404dd6.jpg

Sorry for the blurry shots.


I've already contacted Xotic PC and informed them of the problem.

 

You had a look at the service manual (in my sig)?

 

XoticPC has already mailed me back several times, and we've narrowed down the issue. They're going to send me new standoffs, and I'll be replacing them myself since I simply cannot afford (time-wise) to send it in to them.

The paper bit worked, thanks for that Gophn. I no longer get 90 degrees in 6 seconds on Orthos, I'm stable at about 50 degrees.

XoticPC has been amazing with this, emailing them is as fast as instant messaging xD.


edit: This is bad... XoticPC is now offering to RMA the laptop so that they'd be able to fix it themselves. Hopefully they'll be able to just send the parts here. I absolutely can't afford to send it to them.

edit2: Made it clear that I cannot RMA the laptop, they are now sending me replacement screws. They believe that my stand-off is still intact, since nothing seems to have fallen out of my laptop, so I'll have to find a way to remove these screws myself.


Any ideas? Short of drilling the screw out, which could damage the standoff and the laptop itself, what's the best way to go about this?

 

ok..so this is the first time you tried to unscrew this and it wont come off?

means it was stripped when it was put on. someone was a bit over zealous with the screw tightening. may have used a screw drill instead of doing it by hand.

you can try to place something in between the heat sink and base of laptop to hold the stripped foot in place just be very careful on how much pressure you use. try a tiny flat head screw driver for lifting while your unscrewing...

 

have you tried taking the mobo out?

 

You can try to solder a screw driver to the screw before unscrewing it off.

But make sure you know exactly what this entails before you try.

 

I always rub the tip of my screw drivers against a magnet to make them attract the scrows as they are almost loose which is really helpful in lifting them in these situations.

I'm not sure if this even related to your question ;D

 

have you tried pressing up from the bottom of the screwhead with a flathead or anything?

also, this is off topic, but i saw youre running windows 7 ultimate, is that the beta? and if it is is it reliable enough to use as a primary os? i was debating dual booting it with vista when i get my Sager NP5793

 

That's going to be my next step.

I've come to the conclusion that the screw's stand-off has broken off under the motherboard, and is now dangling while still attached to the screw (since it's slightly screwed in)

Hence, I can still move it up and down, but I can't unscrew it since the standoff just spins with it.

I'll be taking the mobo out (which I really don't want to do, but I suppose it's necessary at this point) and using a pair of pliers to hold the standoff in place while screwing the screw in tightly.

Theoretically, this'll solve the problem completely.




As for the Windows 7 bit, it's 100% stable for me. No BSODs, no hangs, no freezes, no crashes. Everything that's been compatible with Vista is compatible with W7, except for Daemon Tools which I've found an alternative for.

 

awesome, thanks for the heads up, now idk if i want to just go w7 or dual boot it with vista, which would require buying vista...