war story: my new off-the-shelf desktop computer

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Bob Jonkman <bjonkman-w5ExpX8uLjYAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| On HP cases I've worked on (from the last 10 years) the front of the
| case (behind the plastic facing) has four, eight or twelve screws, just
| screwed into the metal of the case, not holding anything in place. They
| have cylindrical heads with a Torx and slot fitting.

Yeah, that's what I need.  And I've seen it too on some old Compaqs.
So I actually looked already and didn't find them.

Thanks very much for suggesting this.  It just might have been a
life-saver, and it isn't obvious.

Did I mention that the service manual (which could help) doesn't describe 
the bays for this model but for some other model?  Grrr.

My feeling is that HP consumer stuff has passed some threshold of
badness that I will not want to be part of.  They just cheap out on
too many things.  I guess I thought "Envy" was their high-end consumer
line and might be OK.  It isn't quite.

The screws that came with the unit (holding the existing disk drive) use 
Torx T15.  Some other things in the case are slot+T15 (I think; I used 
slot).

| They're intended to
| put into drives (without holding anything in place), so that the
| cylindrical screw heads act as gliders in the slots of the "Tool-less
| access" drive bays.

Exactly.

One advantage is that you don't need to get access tobth sides of the
bay to screw in the drive.

I think that some server versions have some rubber involved for
damping.

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