Screws on the MacBook Pro

There are 10 screws on the underside of the MacBook Pro. These screws hold the bottom cover that upon removal, reveals the battery and hard disk. For some time now, there is this little screw in the corner that has been causing me some discomfort. It pokes out slightly, and because the edge of the screw head is quite sharp, it scratches my skin when I slide my hand/finger over it. It’s not bad enough to cause injury, of course, but you’d expect Apple products to have a nice smooth finish and this protruding screw just seems wrong.

Actually, Apple products look nice and smooth, but their manufacturing isn’t all that fantastic. I’ve heard many people complain about many different types of physical defect. I, too, was unfortunate enough to have received a MacBook with a warped trackpad. I was wondering if this protruding screw is yet another of their manufacturing problems.

I finally got down to locating a suitably tiny philips screwdriver. I removed and re-tightened the offending screw. Doesn’t work. Then, I thought I would just remove the entire bottom cover, reseat it and put it back. Ok… 10 screws to remove. Wow, a small little discovery.

The 10 screws look the same on the bottom cover. But when they have been removed, it turns out that there are 3 different types of screws. All have the same head. There are two types of lengths: a long one and a short one. The short screws have two different tread depth. Total of three distinct types. The funny thing is that the different types of screws are not uniformly or symmetrically placed either.

Hmm, I wondered if perhaps someone assembled the screws back wrong? Okay… let’s try swapping the offending protruding screw with another one somewhere else. Bingo… I got all the screws back in nicely so that nothing protrudes.

So… someone assembled my MacBook Pro wrongly?