Some motherboards don’t have standoffs. Some do, and you need to install them. Some come with them pre-installed. And so on. If you’re handy at all in any way, you most likely have an assortment of screws you’ve collected over the years. Looking through the official ASUS Z97I-PLUS manual doesn’t help much either. The only thing I can glean from all of this is your motherboard can handle 2242, 2260 and 2280 sized SSDs; 22mm is the width and 42mm, 60mm and 80mm are lengths. A Standoff, formally known as a Threaded Standoff is a threaded component with a circular body and is available in a variety of combinations. These being Male-Female, Female-Female, and Male-Male. Standoffs are typically circular, hexagonal (hex), or with a square-shaped body depending on the material and size. The materials that they are usually formed from are: So you don’t need to screw them in, but it’s such a simple and easy safety measure, there’s no point not doing it.

M.2 Drives don’t really need to be screwed down flat onto the motherboard, they temporarily (!) work perfectly fine just hovering at an angle of 30°. As the name implies, they’re screws designated to screw in M.2 drives into your motherboard. And they can be a right nuisance at times because they have a tendency to magically disappear when you actually need them. So if you want to buy some screws for M.2 standoffs, what you need are M2 screws. Specifically, you want to get the following M.2 screw size: “ M2x3mm“. MacGyver it (Not Recommended) This is baffling since—if what you are saying is true—the M.2 mounting screw being fused makes no sense; it should simply be a standoff with a small screw in it.

Technical

Screwing it in is just a precaution to make sure that the drive doesn’t get dislodged if you accidentally bump into your PC or something.

Your point-of-view on the cost of these screws is understandable in broad terms. But I am pretty sure that kind of “89 cent per-bag” pricing is for very commonly available screws; not for odd-ball parts like this. Threaded Standoffs are more commonly used in electronics, they are used to raise printed circuit boards above a surface. The insulating parts of a Standoff prevent electrical shorts by acting as a spacer and ensuring that the two components do not touch each other. Types of Standoff Hopefully, that explained everything you wanted to know about what you can do if you lose an M.2 screw! Get some actual M.2 screws and do it right. But in the meantime… Look for Old Small Screws in Your Home Now, sometimes, we just have to wing it and find a way to make it work. You’re missing that M.2 screw but you still want to finish setting up your PC now, and not in 3 days when the new screw arrives, right?These are some tips to make it work (temporarily), but I don’t recommend doing them if at all possible, and if you do, make sure that you don’t just leave it like that. Yes, this is a possibility, but one that should be done with utmost care, if you don’t want to loose your data or fry you parts mid-session. So give it a search and see if you can find something. You probably won’t find something perfect, but even a close enough fit is fine. Just make sure you don’t destroy anything by trying to jam in a screw that’s way too big. Tape the M.2 Drive Down