[ltp] What's this screw for?

[wes schreiner]

Ignacio Fernández Galván wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I bought a ThinkPad R51 (1829-R6G) and it came with several 
> "accessories"  (cables, trackpoint caps...). One of these things was a 
> small screw with a  "six-sided hole in its head" (I'm sure there's a 
> name for that, but I  don't know it).


I bet you are looking at a 2.5 mm Allen head screw, what IBM calls the 
"security screw".  Its purpose is to replace the slotted screw that 
retains the cover of the hard drive.  The idea is to make it more 
difficult to remove the hard drive.  With the slotted screw one can use 
a small coin to turn it, but the "security" screw requires a 2.5 mm 
Allen wrench, sometimes called a hex key.  That's not much security, but 
that's the idea.  See page 70 (PDF page 74) of the Hardware Maintenance 
Manual here: 
<http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=0&context=SP011UU&dc=DA400&q1=1829-R6G&uid=psg1MIGR-53169&loc=en_US&cs=utf-8&cc=us&lang=en>


> Looking at the bottom side of the laptop, I found a hole  where the 
> screw apparently fits, it's near the "lever" for extracting the  
> ultrabay (DVD drive). But I don't know what's the job of this screw, 
> there  doesn't seem to be any difference when the screw is in or out. 
> Does anyone  know what's it for? Should I leave it in or out? 


I don't know what screw hole you have found, perhaps it is for something 
else?  It's not the Security keyhole, that's on the left side.  Does it 
perhaps lock the Ultrabay device in place?  My guess is the screw you 
have is the hard drive security screw, and its use is optional.

wes
I