Traveling w/PC (plane)

[pigwalk]

Hey guys, I'm flying out of the country tomorrow and I've got to get my PC packed up and ready to go when I get home from work tomorrow morning. I've read the other thread on the subject, but A - I can't bring it as carryon, that's reserved for the Gibson SG i bought for 20 bucks, and B - I can't ship, since I'm flying to Argentina, it would take 6 weeks, cost about 200 bucks to ship it. Nope, not happening.. The case is a Aspire X-Dreamer II. I still have the original box with the styrofoam fittings. I think all of them, I only have one End piece, and I'm sticking that to the front end so the LED's don't get busted. Should I have a CD in the drive or not when shipping it? Anything else to look out for? Thanks!

-wil

 

[galdoes16]

I'm not sure, but I think the only thing to worry about is Custom's.

 

[Jinx_player]

Be sure to take off the heatsink, remove the drives, and pad the shit out of the thing if your going to ship it someway..you can fit it into a bag that goes into the plane (luggage-like), and send yourself the misc parts.

 

[tiraides]

Here are some suggestions that I made in an earlier thread:

I took a full desktop with me when I visited my parents a couple years back. (I was deploying to Afghanistan following that trip, so I decided to give that computer to my younger brother.) I had a hardtop suitcase, so I place a towel along the bottom of the suitcase, place the computer case in the middle, and surrounded it with clothes. I took the video card, sound card, and RAM out of the case, wrapped them up as if I was shipping them in a box, and placed them in between some clothing inside the suitcase. I also put a lot of those grocery store plastic bags inside the computer case, particularly in any gaps that I saw in there. I put a towel on the exposed side of the case when I was done.

My biggest problem with taking the computer in my suitcase was with the TSA guys. I made sure that one side of the case was unscrewed beforehand and when my bags were being searched, I opened up the case, showed them the parts that I had wrapped up and separated, and told them that I was shipping a computer case. But those bright guys didn't listen to me. After I got to my parents' house I found out that they stripped the PSU and my fans from the case during their detailed search. I had to replace the fans and get bigger screws for the PSU but the computer surprisingly worked fine otherwise.

You don't need a specialized suitcase to send stuff back. You simply need to pack it into the suitcase almost the same way as if you were going to ship it home. But you need to make sure that the TSA guys know that you have a computer or else they'll practice their superb bomb-defusing skills on it. Also, any checked suitcase that weighs over 50lbs will be charged extra -- $25 for up to 75lbs and $50 for up to 100lbs, anything heavier means you're SOL. Since you want to bring your monitor with you, you may want to take it off the stand (if you can) and pack that in a separate suitcase. Also, take everything (save for your processor and motherboard) out of the case and fill the case with something that will minimize movement without shorting your system.

The two main issues are to pack your computer without possibly shorting out any of the parts and to make sure that the security/customs workers know that you're carrying a computer, not a bomb, onto the plane (they tend to ignore that for some reason...). If you could do those two things, you're golden.

(... but you might not have much room left for clothes.... )

 

[three_sixteen]

Yeah, I would worry about customs too.. I'm pretty sure that the states have some thing about exporting computers over a certain processor speed.. but I can't remember if thats true or not or if it would apply to you.

 

[8fingers]

almost positive most large airports have one or two huge x-ray machines where you can have them scan your luggage while you wait (i know this to be true in ATL). if they find something, the TSA agents will search your bag then and there. if they scan it and find nothing, you may lock your bag and then it goes straight to the plane. if you want to make sure they don't strip random parts out, i'd go this route...

good luck

 

[Sunborder]

No problems with exports. Don't be silly. Most of the Processors we buy are imported anyway. There was an urban legend about Sadam Hussein and the PS2 being used for missile guidance, and that's probably where you got this idea.

People somehow have this idea that all the technology we have is designed/made locally. Ridiculous. Half our stuff is manufactured in Taiwan. As for illegitimate use of processors by "bad guys", there's nothing really advantageous about newer processors for weapon guidance or similar that off the shelf weapon systems 20 years ago made by the Russians or Chinese wouldn't handle. You've been reading too many science fiction novels. If that were the case, then nobody could take a recent laptop out of the country....some of those babies run to 3.x ghz these days. And like customs is going to keep up with the state of the art. If customs controlled what Mhz processors we could export, they would likely be using numbers from 5 years ago, government red tape being what it is. In other words, we'd be looking at those ultra-fast 1ghz machines.

You should have no trouble with the computer and US customs. People take desktop computers with them all the time. I've done it internationally myself and had no problems on either end. The worst you might face is an import tax in Argentina. Check with the Argentine customs people to find out.

*shit* I can't believe anyone still believes this crap.