Safely Ship a system long distance

P

PoorBehavior

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 23, 2004
Messages
312
I am returning from the middle East soon and I am going to have to ship the desktop I built here home.
I have the original box for the case and most everything else.
I had originally intended on putting everything back into original boxes but I figured Dell and everyone else sends their systems built and it would be much easier to do that. I am going to pull the HSF off the processor but besides that is there anything I should do to make sure, (at least from my end) that she gets home safe?
I am obviously going to insure the package but should I pack the inside of the case with t-shirts etc.?
Has anybody had any horror stories I could learn from?
 
There are quite a few horror stories that you could search for, but for the most part, you should be fine. I'd pack the inside of the case with air bags, or crumpled newspaper/brownbags otherwise. Yes, I'd remove the CPU HSF, vidcard if its heavy, and HDD if I wanted to safeguard my data (though HDDs can withstand quite a bit of shock while not operating).
 
Backup your data to an external drive if you can, and then carry that external with you personally on your return trip. (My Plan B would be pulling the hard drive and carrying it with me in an anti-static bag.) That is if you have anything critical that you don't want to lose - photos, financial info, pr0n, etc.

Reseat cards and RAM before powering it up when you get it home.
 
you could get what alienware used when i bought my alienware, card keepers, it keeps the pci cards in place which could also help.
 
Good call on pulling the HSF. I've seen too many photos of damage caused by a cooler that's come loose during shipping. I would also pull the HDD. That way, should your PC get lost in transit (it happens) your data isn't floating around out there, somewhere...

Lastly, my advice is to double box your PC with appropriate padding packed tightly around the computer itself and between the inner/outer boxes. I had a Yeong Yang server cube shipped once that got pretty banged up in transit... probably would have escaped unscathed had it been double boxed.
 
As others have stated, pull the HSF, video card, and remove the hard drives.

Hard drives should be carried with you if possible or shipped separately. Of course if you feel you do not have any critical data on your drives, then this step might be overkill.
 
Appreciate the responses. I had already considered double boxing or padding the box on the outside. The hard drives are a pain but I can always throw the important stuff on one drive and leave the others in the case. My carry on space is very limited. Most of what I have is videos and tv series I have been burning courtesy of MWR.
So, pull HSF, Video. Make sure everything else is secure and pack well. Oh, cross fingers.
Thanks
 
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