Hot take: that $30 tri-wing screwdriver kit from Amazon cost me way more than it saved
I know everyone says just grab a cheap driver kit off Amazon and skip the $15 name brand one, but I learned the hard way that's a bad call. Bought a $30 kit back in March to open up a GameCube I grabbed at a flea market in Mesa, and the tip stripped on the very first screw. Not the screw, the driver tip. So now I've got a chewed up tri-wing screw stuck in the shell, a stripped bit, and zero way to get in there without drilling it out. I tried the rubber band trick, tried a bigger flathead, nothing worked. Ended up paying a guy at a local shop $45 just to extract that one screw so I could get the case open. So that $30 kit actually cost me $75 plus a wasted Saturday afternoon, and the console still needs a recap I haven't even started. Has anyone found a driver set that actually holds up on Nintendo tri-wing screws, or am I just supposed to buy the expensive one and stop being cheap about it?
That is actually painful to hear. A bit stripping on the first screw is wild, like what is that tip even made of, butter? And then $45 to pull one stuck screw? I would've been so mad. The tri-wing screws on GameCubes are soft as hell too so once the bit chews up it just welds itself in there.