Loose screw in mainboard - should I be worried?

Community Support
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Update: Decided to just boot it and see what happened since a loose screw doesn’t really do any harm if it’s not in the computer. Everything seems to be working well!

Hello! Brand new to Framework laptops and the experience of putting mine together has been good so far except for a concern I wanted to ask about before I start running electricity through it.

This is a Framework 13, AMD Ryzen AI 300, Windows 11. I have not booted the machine or installed the OS yet.

There was a loose screw in the mainboard that I found during the assembly, it fell from somewhere I couldn’t see when I picked it up. I have no idea where it could have been screwed in to, nothing seems to be missing in the mainboard assembly. I was able to complete assembly without issue, but I am concerned that this screw could cause issues if it’s missing from something that needs it. Picture of the screw and where I found it attached.

Any help is appreciated! I’d rather not risk frying the mainboard when I hit the power button if I can avoid it.

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The screw missing is likely not a big problem, however the screw boucing around inside a laptop with a plugged in battery could have done some elctrical damage but you may also have got lucky.

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op has not booted the machine. The first boot has to be done on external power because the battery is disconnected

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I’ve booted it now - seems I did indeed get lucky, as everything seems to be in working order. Really unfortunate that a screw can come loose like that during the manufacturing process, but seems like no harm done this time!