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Comment by abdusco | Hacker News Reader

I stripped a couple of screws on my XPS 13 and was about to break the bottom panel out of anger & frustration. Instead I bought a new, quality set of screwdrivers and managed to open it, then replaced torx screws with phillips head M2x3 screws. Highly recommend.

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Weird. I bought a torx screwdriver to open my new XPS 13, and the screwdriver stripped. I bought a better screwdriver, and didn't have any problems with the screws or screwdriver after that.

(Stripped screwdriver was Husky brand from Home Depot, better screwdriver was a less-expensive, higher-quality one from Harbor Freight.)

Can confirm Home Depot/Husky did not have a happy ending on one screw. Which Harbor Freight set you pick up?

(was getting ready to mix the epoxy for the one screw/bit)

Pittsburgh Pro, 34 pc. precision screwdriver

The label is on the back. The front is a clear lid which shows the flexible extension, a straight extension, the screwdriver (black and green), then four rows of bits.

It's a pretty decent set. It's kind of funny though, the warning label on the back says to wear "heavy duty work gloves during use."

Torx is much more stable than philips head.

To add to this, Phillips screws are designed to cause the screwdriver to cam out. This is done so you can’t over torque the screw hole. This also makes them really annoying sometimes.

No, it was found that they have a tendency to cam out and it was later claimed that cam-out was a feature not a bug.

Regardless, using Pozidrive, JIS, Torx or similar is better for your soul.

Torx, Philips, whatever, we can all agree that they're both 10x better than Allen-head screws.

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