Flying (airplane rides) with computers

[pennylane]

So it turns out I'll have to wait at least a couple weeks before I know what I'm doing over summer (whether to stay in my apartment in college at Berkeley or go home in socal for the entire summer). So I'd like to go home for a little bit. I usually drive, or rather, find somebody that drives. The problem is, any potential car ride has already left and it seems like flying home is the only way to get home now.

Is it horridly inconvenient to fly with a computer (tower and lcd monitor)? How could I make it work?

 

[DAGTA]

You'd have to check them, so make sure they are packaged extremely well.

 

[UlricT]

kind of the same problem here (transportation of tower)... was thinking of shipping it.

 

[Lonyo]

I did it once on a short flight in the UK.
Stuck the tower in a box (didn't take a monitor, only tower), packaged it well, and put it in the hold with no real issues. There were warnings on to say be careful of course.
Plenty of padding, and removing possible dangerous things in the tower (like heavy heatsink, or any heatsink) and making sure everything is secure are musts.
If it's an LCD< it won't be too bad either because of the size.
Check you won't be over the weight limit, ring the airline and check if there's anything extra you need to do etc.

 

[FoBoT]

you would be better off shipping it via fedex ground

if you check it, it will be stolen

if you carry it on, they will arrest you for being a terrorist

ok, maybe you can carry on one or the other, but i don't think you can carry on a monitor and a tower, too much biggness

 

[Gibson486]

It's gonna cost alot, but it is called USPS.

 

[Biggerhammer]

Back it up beforehand. Insure the h3ll out of it, pack it well, and either it comes through fine or you get to go computer shopping.

 

[TitanDiddly]

I'm bringing my computer on a cross-country flight in a week. I'm making a nice strong crate for it and I'm going to package it well. Make sure you remove the heatsink from the CPU, because it's heavy and if the computer receives a shock, it can pull the whole ZIF socket off the motherboard. Similar warning for video cards/sound cards or any kind of card you have in there. Personally, I'm going to remove my HDD and take it on my carryon, because it's shock-sensitive.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
you would be better off shipping it via fedex ground

if you check it, it will be stolen

if you carry it on, they will arrest you for being a terrorist

ok, maybe you can carry on one or the other, but i don't think you can carry on a monitor and a tower, too much biggness

seriously, might cost all of $20.


or, don't bring your computer.

 

[Injury]

If I were anywhere near those areas, I'd transport it for the cost of gas plus grilled cheese sandwhiches. Because a) I'm that cool, b) road trips are fun.