best way to ship a desktop?

Oh, yes! I can relate to all of this. I remember feeling like I had one shot and no real back up plan. Fortunately, I never broke anything too terribly.

About 10 years ago, because I found a brand new sealed in box eMachines with a very nice CPU and good specs for $185 at Best Buy on clearance, I couldn’t pass it up, but had no real use for it.

What I ended up doing was putting in a $200 video card, a second hard drive, doubled the ram, and a few other things I needed to do to turn it into a proper gaming rig. That’s right; I turned an eMachines into a gaming rig. I actually completed the original “Crysis” on it.

And it was so stealth. It looked totally like a stock eMachine.

The one thing I did not upgrade was the original 300 watt Bestec PSU.
I’m actually amazed now (after doing a bit of research) that that little PSU powered that rig for two solid years before giving up the ghost, and taking out the motherboard with it.

tl;dr
I was very fond of that machine, so I elected to save it. Fortunately, only the motherboard and PSU had died; all else was good. Ordered a proper brand-name PSU for $100. But finding a new OEM motherboard for a two-year-old eMachine proved difficult, so I finally bit the bullet and bought one straight from eMachines… for $200. But it worked. It also came with a slip of paper stating that under no circumstances should I use this new motherboard with the original Bestec PSU. Heh.

Anyway, when I went to install the CPU onto the motherboard, I couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t go straight in to the holes. So I pushed a little harder, and harder.

Finally, I stopped and had a look. I had now bent about a dozen pins. Aiee! Got a tweezer, and very slowly bent them all straight again. Amazingly, it worked. Still works to this day. Well, I don’t use it any more, but it was still working when I took it out of service, and it is now my offline XP rig in case I ever need one.

Sorry it took me so long to get to the point.

Giles, that didn’t seem too long to me! I meant to say that when I read it on my phone, but then I forgot.

Meanwhile, I have a PC shipping update!

Hey, people! I just shipped the newly built PC back to Tucson. This time I declared it’s value at $2k. (I sent the monitor $500 and the PC $1500). I had them put the PC in another box, but I saved the original box the case came in, along with the styrofoam inserts. So that’s original box, with inserts, and another box, hopefully stuffed with peanuts and packing stuff. It all looked pretty tight. I hope the shit makes it unscathed.

Out of curiosity, why is this PC wracking up so many miles in a relatively short period? Was that the plan all along that you were going to ship it to Seattle for a 4-5 month stint and then back again?

Yes, it came home for summer break. It wasn’t really a plan as much as this is just the way it happened. He built it in AZ last winter and then wanted to use it at home over the summer.

Costs:

To answer the question I posed in the OP about cost, it was about $130. We had the original boxes the monitor and case came in (with inserts to hold those pieces steady), and it was only a few dollars more to have the PC placed in another box, surrounded by packing as Skipper (I think) suggested. I sent it out yesterday from the UPS store, and it will arrive on Thursday. For about 3x increase in cost, I could have expedited the delivery, and it would have arrived on Wednesday.

So I am just curious, everything is resolved right? Computer in hand and he’s enjoying it? I am just curious.

Oh, I have been meaning to report back! Thanks for the prompt @Nesrie.

The PC made it, and it was undamaged, but there was drama. The heatsink partially detached! I saw a picture and it was sort of hanging awkwardly by one or two of its posts. Fortunately it was easy enough to snap it back into place and that was that.

I was very surprised because I put the case into the case box with all the packing and it was suspended on all sides by the inserts. And then I had them put that box inside another box with its own packing material. Nevertheless, the heatsink still came off. For future shipments, we will have to disassemble the heatsink and reassemble after shipping. I think someone actually suggested this up thread.

I had it insured which was a comfort, but I’m glad we didn’t have to file a claim.

Is there a reason your son couldn’t bring it as carry-on? Does the TSA permit that? I haven’t tried. But if I had to ship my PC, I’d probably look at trying to carry with me, first.

It says it’s permitted and needs to go through the machine. If I had to lug around a computer, I’d definitely go with a small case, micro-ATX at least if not mini and they have cases designed for carrying.

Excellent. Glad to hear it!

I’ve seen straps specifically designed to permit carrying of even full size towers. That said, my current case would probably fit inside a standard carry-on roller bag. Shipping just seems too costly and risky. I’d carry-on my PC and check in my clothes and such.

That might be a good option for the next time. It’s a full size case, but I bet it would fit inside a roller bag. Have to try it out. The clothes could just go in a canvas sack or something.

It wasn’t that expensive to ship. I can’t remember but probably comparable to an extra bag on most air carriers.

I think your previous post mentioned $130. I think that’s more than most airlines charge to check in an extra bag. Frankly, I’d do it more for the security of handling it myself, even if the cost were comparable.

Shippers can be very, very rough on packages and even the best padding can fail.

Good point. I didn’t even consider carry on last year, but I didn’t realize how hard shipping can be. I shipped a PC across country once with no problem, but it must have been ~20 years ago, which means those big heavy heat sinks weren’t a thing yet, and probably all the parts were just bigger and more heavy duty. (Interestingly the big heavy heat sink makes shipping more dangerous, despite it being a big hunk of metal, because its weight can rip it off the motherboard and if it gets loose it can really mess up your stuff). These days I think it probably makes sense, as you say, to use the carry on, and maybe just ship the monitor, because I think it would be hard to stuff even a nice flat screen into a carry-on bag. My old CRT must have weighed a ton.

The shipping charge I quoted was must likely for both monitor and CPU, but I can’t remember how it divided up. I’m pretty sure the CPU was more expensive, but not by much.