Transporting a PC

[OverlySensitive]

Hello! Could anyone help in advising how is the best way to transport a PC overseas? Is it better to hand carry the hard drive as a whole in hand carry? Take it apart and hand carry the parts and check in the tower? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

Is it a mechanical hard drive?

Do you realise that different countries use different voltages and you may well have to change the PSU?

To be honest, for the cost of transport, any repairs or replacements it might need, you'd probably be as well just exporting anything you need to keep to a portable drive and then re-installing on a localised machine once you get where you are going. I know that's not what you asked, but I'm struggling a bit to imagine why you'd dismantle a machine and transport it to a foreign country in the first place.

My son is going to uni overseas and wants to take his PC with him which is quite new. We really don't want to buy all over again. Power supply should be no problem. Have checked with the airline and he would be able to hand carry the parts so thinking maybe to do this and check in his monitor. Possibly buy a new cases once he gets there.

Sorry, forgot to say thank you @XDownwiththissortofthingX

Well if you still have the boxes and protective packaging I'd say it's realistic enough to carry on the motherboard, GPU card etc, but if not then they are likely to get damaged. It then comes down to the question of whether leaving them in the case is the better bet provided you trust the carrier to handle that properly.

Either way, I wouldn't want to be carrying a mechanical drive around because they are delicate and particularly prone to damage during transit. Not an issue really with SSD.

Things like monitors are pretty cheap and replaceable, so I would be tempted to look at the cost of just buying a replacement rather than boxing, insuring, and shipping an existing one, unless its some sort of specialist thing in huge dimensions that cost a fortune. Cases are also fairly cheap and replaceable, but to be honest, If it was me doing the same thing I'd likely just box the entire PC, insure it, and ship it. Silicon boards don't really take kindly to being pulled in and out of machines, and unless they are really well wrapped and protected they are really easy to damage. I'm a desktop user myself, and likely always will be, but this is the sort of thing that laptops really are better for, though I appreciate that isn't particularly helpful to you or your son right now.

When we did this DH used an entire suitcase for the PC, went and bought some foam cut to the size of the computer, took it apart, put everything in anti static bags and cut slots in the foam to house each part so that it would be well padded. It was fine.

Size of the suitcase I mean

Can't he make do with a laptop instead?

Thank you @BertieBotts that is really reassuring. Such a clever solution from your DH.

@RampantIvy He really is quite adamant to take it with him but I think we've come to the agreement that he'll replace some of the items when he gets there. As @XDownwiththissortofthingX said some items are quite cheap to replace.

I've taken pc towers and monitors (not at the same time) in a standard checked in suitcase. I padded the pc tower well in clothes and the monitor padded well in bubble wrap + clothes. Both survived with no issue.

One thing to watch if you transport it whole is using something antistatic to fill the gaps internally, very easy to crack the boards on some of the heavier GPUs or motherboards if a heavy cooler is attached.