Asus kills tiny, easy-to-lose M.2 screws with this handy Q-Latch

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Is there anything worse than repeatedly dropping the very small screw that lets you install an M.2 SSD drive on your PC? Yeah, but it’s definitely up there on the list – and now, Asus has a solution.

It’s called the Q-Latch, and it’s about as simple as that: a plastic retaining lever that you can rotate with just one slide of your thumb. You can get one of several of Asus’ new Z590 and B560 motherboards, although it hasn’t yet rolled out to the company’s more expensive boards because PCGamesN Remarks.

This is not a brand new idea, as the kind of business-oriented laptops and desktops your system administrator might have bought sometimes had plastic retention clips in the past, but this is the first once i see something like this on DIY desktop components.

More than one Edge Staff are happy to see Asus doing something about it. Newer SSDs usually don’t come with these screws, so you usually need to carefully back up those on your motherboard if you want to install one later. They’re also boring to put in: I helped one of my buds build a remote computer last week, and he dropped it a few times. (Sorry, my friend. Your sad story is commemorated on The edge now.)

One trick is to place the M.2 screw on the lip of your SSD before pressing it fully against the motherboard, using both the spring tension of the SSD and the tip of your screwdriver to hold it in place when you push down. But if you’d rather not deal with it, I see Asus’ Q-Latch listed for the following motherboards:

  • TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WiFi
  • ROG Strix Z590-A gaming Wi-Fi
  • ROG Strix Z590-E gaming Wi-Fi
  • ROG Strix Z590-F gaming Wi-Fi
  • ROG Strix B560-A gaming Wi-Fi
  • ROG Strix B560-F gaming Wi-Fi
  • ROG Strix B560-G gaming Wi-Fi

I hope other manufacturers will follow Asus’ lead, but I have no hopes. Remember when I asked if there was anything worse than M.2 screws? Worse are the tiny header cables – you know, the ones that seem to like being guillotined by graphics cards and are painful to insert if you have big hands. Asus has something for that too, but its “Q-Connector” (see below) is not widespread either.

A small plastic brick with pins that allows you to insert all of the motherboard headers at once.

It’s a small plastic brick with pins that allows you to insert all of the motherboard headers at once.
Image: Asus



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