Checking a desktop for a flight

[ath50]

My friend is coming back from school and I suggested he might save some money by checking his desktop instead of shipping it. I think I read a while back that this was ok, but I don't know of anyone who has done this.

Anyone have any experience with this? I vaguely remember reading this mentioned like 4 years ago and there was some mention of making sure that the heatsink is firmly attached or else it might come loose and smash your cpu. If checking is not a problem, anyone have any tips to share as far as this goes?

Thanks!

 

[Ns1]

FUCK NO

 

[Drakkon]

have you seen how they throw a bag with a sticker marked fragile?
now imagine them doing that with your desktop....

 

[sdifox]

take out all the plug in stuff (videocard, cpu, ram, etc) the mb and drives should survive 🙂

 

[Ns1]

Originally posted by: sdifox
take out all the plug in stuff (videocard, cpu, ram, etc) the mb and drives should survive 🙂

I see the future...a future post by the OP...

OMG, THE TSA OPENED UP MY COMPUTER AND FUCKED IT UP! AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID LETTER

 

[AmpedSilence]

take the hard drive out and take with you on carry on and unplug everything like sdifox said. It should be fine.

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: AmpedSilence
take the hard drive out and take with you on carry on and unplug everything like sdifox said. It should be fine.

As a bonus, you can tape a Glock under your hard drive and the Glock won't be visible on the X-ray because of the drive.

 

[daveshel]

I took one as a carry-on once. It was a real pain.

 

[ath50]

Originally posted by: daveshel
I took one as a carry-on once. It was a real pain.

Just because it was a pain carrying the case around or howso?

I was just thinking maybe carry on would be about 10x safer.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: ath50

Originally posted by: daveshel
I took one as a carry-on once. It was a real pain.

Just because it was a pain carrying the case around or howso?

I was just thinking maybe carry on would be about 10x safer.

if it is a mid tower, I would say carry on. I used to carry around a shuttle xpc + 15" lcd monitor as carry on. HAd to power on and shit, but at least it is not being banged around.

 

[daveshel]

Originally posted by: ath50

Originally posted by: daveshel
I took one as a carry-on once. It was a real pain.

Just because it was a pain carrying the case around or howso?

I was just thinking maybe carry on would be about 10x safer.

Even though it was small enough to qualify as a carry-on, it was pretty heavy to carry. Inflexible. I wouldn't try it again - you can't always count on overhead bin space being available and it might get planeside checked anyway. But that beats being baggage handled.