Enermax Security Screws & Tool Kit - Articles / Reviews

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Enermax Security Screws & Tool Kit

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Bradford Day
Kurtis
Maxpoint
Mar. 26, 2004

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First Looks

Both the Enermax Tool Kit and Security Screws arrived in good condition. The product packaging was straightforward and simple as well as easy to open. The security screws are packaged in a round tin, nicely seated in a piece of red foam. Inside the tin are 16 screws (8 gold, 8 black), 2 custom keys and a double-headed screwdriver used to install the screws. The gold screws have 3-pronged heads and are removable with the gold colored key or the gold colored head of the screwdriver. The black screws have 4-pronged heads and are removable with, you guessed it, the black key and black screwdriver head. Each of these custom screw heads is designed make it exceedingly difficult to remove the Security Screws with a normal style Philips or flat-head screwdriver. In addition, the outer rims of the screw heads spin around the neck of the screw. This is an ingenious design feature that is intended to keep sticky fingered scoundrels from snagging your precious $300 video card, or other expensive internal hardware.

The Enermax Tool Kit comes packaged in a typical bubble pack. The tool is also a smartly designed piece of equipment. After removing the packaging and having a chuckle at the loosely translated English instructions, I flipped open the pistol-grip handle to reveal the 4 sockets, 7 bits, extension, and socket adapter. The ratcheting neck can be set to tighten or loosen (just like a socket wrench) and can also be locked in a stationary position all with a simple twist of the yellow collar. Depressing the red button on the left side allows you to swing the neck down into the handle for storage or flip it out straight for a more traditional style screwdriver feel. The nylon grip is well molded and fit my hand quite well.

Testing

To test the Tool Kit, I simply went about removing various computer components from my machine as well as tightening and loosening screws on the case itself. Of course the Tool Kit's screwdriver bits worked just fine for removing the small exterior case screws and I was even able to use one of the small sockets to remove a few hex head screws. The ratcheting neck really makes short work of removing those little screws and bolts. For exterior case work, the Tool Kit is a fine tool. But I found using the pistol grip inside a fully loaded case rather difficult at times. Extending the ratcheting neck straight out helped a little, but the large molded handle makes it more difficult to access tiny motherboard screws.

The variety of sockets and bits contained within the secret compartment style handle are all very useful and the fit snuggly without falling out. I doubt very many computer builders will find use for the larger sized sockets or hex bolt bits though. In fact, this tool has such a wide array of interchangeable pieces that you might find yourself using it more around the garage than inside your computer case. Corporate tech guys and gals might benefit most from this compact, Swiss Army knife inspired tool. I could see it coming in handy if you were constantly removing and re-attaching side panels or power supplies all day.

Testing the Enermax Security Screws required a little more horsepower. On their website, Maxpoint says that these screws offer "ultimate protection against unwanted intruders." Well for this round of testing, Rich and I decided to don the roles of "unwanted intruders"!well armed unwanted intruders in fact. To truly test the fortitude of these little buggers, we employed the help of Rich's tool chest. As you can see from our impressive arsenal of tools, we weren't taking our job lightly. We wanted to see what it would take to break into a case secured with the Enermax Security Screws.

I first installed the screws on our sacrificial test case. Knowing that we were most likely going to destroy the screw points of said test case, we chose a hideous pink case that had also been responsible for frying a motherboard, due to poorly constructed motherboard standoffs. So I guess you could say it was a personal vendetta. Anyway, we installed one gold and one black screw on the case. We tightened each screw down with the included screwdriver as tight as we could get them. Then we set out to remove the Security Screws!by any means necessary. First we tried the good old vice grips. Despite our best clamping efforts, the little screws held strong. The rotating outer rings of the screws really did keep us from getting a good grip!the rings just spin around the head of the screw, preventing would-be thieves from actually turning the neck of the screw. The rotating outer rings of the screws are slightly tapered, which also helps to keep unwanted tools from getting their metallic teeth around the outer ring.

Next we tried blunt-nosed pliers, no luck. Needle-nosed pliers proved equally as useless as did wire snips and tweezers. Frustrated, we went at them again with the vice grips. This time around we succeeded only in destroying the poor outer ring, thus making it impossible to remove the screw even with the included screwdriver. Time for the big guns. The large reciprocating SKIL saw made short work of the insolent little screws and melted lots of pink plastic in the process.

We decided to test them again. This time I installed two new screws with the included custom keys. I was able to get more torque with the keys as the screwdriver head had a tendency to slip off the 3-pronged gold screw heads. Once again we let loose with the destruction. This time, however, we tried a pair of smaller needle nose pliers and attempted to grab a hold of the actual screw head itself as opposed to the rotating outer ring. With a large amount of elbow grease and at just the right angle, we were able to remove the screws. This was the only way we were able to extract the Security Screws (without the help of a power tool). The smaller needle nose pliers were just tiny enough to fit around the pronged screw heads and eventually twist them free, but it wasn't an easy task.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Looks & Testing
Page 3: Quality Check & Conclusion

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