How to ship your Personal Rig internationally

[Holford]

Hello again, fellow TechTippians!

 

So a little over a year ago, I posted this question to the forums "How to ship my Rig (Moving from the UK to USA)". Well, it's a year later. I've moved from London to Austin. My Personal Rig has come with me - and boy did I learn a few things about shipping computers internationally along the way...

 

First of all, I want to stress something: @wolfsbane3083 had the best answer to my original question. However, due to budget constraints, time, and locally available resources, I had to go with a sliughtly different solution.

 

That all said, i wanted to share my experience with you all, lest some other poor soul out there has to go through the same thing I did.

 

THE RIG

So the machine I was shipping was housed in a Cooler Master Mastercase Pro 5 body. Full specs include:

• CPU    Intel i5 4960k Quad Core CPU
• Motherboard    Asus Z97-PRO Gamer S1150 Z97 ATX
• RAM    Kingston HyperX Savage 2400MHz (4x8gb - 32GB)
• GPU    (x2) MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 Gaming Twin Frozr
• Case    Cooler Master Mastercase Pro 5
• Storage    (x1) Intel 535 240GB SSD, (x1) Samsung Evo 240GB SSD, (x2) WD Black 4TB HDD
• PSU    EVGA SuperNOVA 750W PC Power Supply
• Cooling    Corsair Hydro Series H110i GT 280mm Extreme Performance All-In-One Liquid CPU Cooler

 

THE BUDGET

Due to the expense of everything else with this move (I think I spent culmatively $8000 on Visa fees, Processing fees, Flights, Medical Exams, and more) I had to limit my shipping costs as much as possible. Overall, I had approximately $200 to spend on shipping.

 

THE SOLUTION

So how did I send it? It boiled down to a few stages:

• Deconstruction: I removed the HDDs and SSDs, along with my two Graphics Cards, and the WiFi antennas, from the rig prior to packing. I also put back into the case the original rear PCI-e shrouds.
• Packing: I used the box that came with my Cooler Master Mastercase Pro 5 case (as well as the original foam packing), filling the outside & inside of the case and box with ESD safe packing peanuts.
• Preparation: I placed the graphics card into their original ESD wrappers & retail boxes, and the HDDs and SSDs into a foam-lined steel carry case. These boxes all then were packed into my checked luggage.
• Shipping: Using the courier DPD in the UK, I paid approximately $180 for shipping & insurance (guaranteeing me reimbursement for damage done to the components at retail price) and taking it by hand to one of their depots.

 

THE OUTCOME

The rig arrived approximately 3 days after I did (taking 5 days overall). The box it arrived in was... frankly... destroyed. In hindsight, I could've definitely done with purchasing another box to place the case's box into, and attaching it to a flat wooden pallett. Unfortunately for cost (the side & weight of this would've moved me from consumer to commercial shipping costs, which were almost twice the amount I paid) I wasn't able to do this.

 

Upon arrival, there were a few... concerning things that I noticed. 

• Two of my RAM modules had become unlocked and gotten stuck between various other parts of the case
  They were otherwise undamaged, and are still recognised & used by my system without incident. 
   
• The power-supply came loose from the case's bracket & the screw became lodged underneath the PSU's body
  This was the most notable damage to my system, as the actual PSU chassis has become slightly dented and damaged from moving around within the body of the case, during its journey.

 

There were also things that didn't go wrong, and seem unaffected by their transatlantic journey: 

• The CPU & All-in-one Water Cooler remained in place, undamaged, and tightened to the case
  Due to a lack of suitable box to place the Corsair H110i GT AIO Water-Cooler in for shipping, I was forced to leave it in the system. There has been no damage, or drop in performance.
   
• The original box that came with the Cooler Master Mastercase Pro 5 case is very resilient
  I switched from a Corsair Air 540 to the Mastercase Pro 5 about 6 months prior to my move, in small part because of Cooler Master's legendary packing materials. I was not disappointed.

 

Okay guys, that my 'guide' to moving internationally. There are lots of mistakes I made (that hopefully someone else can learn from), and plenty of things I discovered along the way.

 

If you're about to go through a similar move, and want any advice or want to ask any questions, please feel free to hit me up. Also checkout the original thread that was linked at the start of this post, as there are lots of useful tips in there from people who have actually worked in the shipping industry.

 

That's all for now guys - catch you next time!

[Ryujin2003]

This is why I hold onto all of the original boxes for my components. AIO, CPU, GPU, MB, RAM. Pretty much everything except my hard drives.

I would've put the case in it's own box, filled it with bubble wrap and shipped it on its way, while putthing the rest of the components tightly in a double box. Put them all into one box, packed tight with bubblewrap. Then put that box into a slightly larger box, bubble wrap that, and then ship. The extra boxes do help with damage issues. Its easy to get damaged through one box, but two boxes seems to do a pretty good job at displacing impacts.

 

Otherwise, great experience, glad I didn't have to go through it. Do you have any pictures of how you packaged things up?

[AnonymousGuy]

Personally I would have deconstructed the entire thing and ship it in pieces.  The only reason to ship it assembled is if it's going to someone who can't reassemble themselves.  Me?  I can build a desktop in 15 minutes.

 

Singularity Computers has a vid on how he ships systems.  Basically fills them up with microfiber towels then shitloads of outer packaging.

[Holford]

3 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

This is why I hold onto all of the original boxes for my components. AIO, CPU, GPU, MB, RAM. Pretty much everything except my hard drives.

I would've put the case in it's own box, filled it with bubble wrap and shipped it on its way, while putthing the rest of the components tightly in a double box. Put them all into one box, packed tight with bubblewrap. Then put that box into a slightly larger box, bubble wrap that, and then ship. The extra boxes do help with damage issues. Its easy to get damaged through one box, but two boxes seems to do a pretty good job at displacing impacts.

 

Otherwise, great experience, glad I didn't have to go through it. Do you have any pictures of how you packaged things up?

Thank you! - and you hit the nail on the head with your comments. These are definitely all things I learned along the way.

 

I had found a number of wooden boxes that would've fit the Mastercase's original box, but the thing that held me back from all of them was it moved my shipping costs from $190 up to $300-500 depending on courier & insurance coverage.

 

I didn't take a photo of the finished products (I swore I did, but after scouring my Camera Roll, no joy!), but suffice to say it was covered in Black Shipping Wrap (about 10-15 layers of coating), copious amounts of Fragile Shipping tape (until you all but couldn't see the black wrap anymore), and the insides filled to-the-brim with ESD packing peanuts!

 

Glad you found this an interesting tale - and thank you for commenting too!

[Ryujin2003]

1 minute ago, Holford said:

Thank you! - and you hit the nail on the head with your comments. These are definitely all things I learned along the way.

 

I had found a number of wooden boxes that would've fit the Mastercase's original box, but the thing that held me back from all of them was it moved my shipping costs from $190 up to $300-500 depending on courier & insurance coverage.

 

I didn't take a photo of the finished products (I swore I did, but after scouring my Camera Roll, no joy!), but suffice to say it was covered in Black Shipping Wrap (about 10-15 layers of coating), copious amounts of Fragile Shipping tape (until you all but couldn't see the black wrap anymore), and the insides filled to-the-brim with ESD packing peanuts!

 

Glad you found this an interesting tale - and thank you for commenting too!

I've moved my rig several times in the past couple years, but it was all Stateside, and drove my system myself. But still disassembled into the smallest components. I hope the AIO continues to function. I think that's the scariest part to ship!

[Holford]

12 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

I've moved my rig several times in the past couple years, but it was all Stateside, and drove my system myself. But still disassembled into the smallest components. I hope the AIO continues to function. I think that's the scariest part to ship!

Oh totally - the AIO Water Cooler has been the only thing to give me pause for thought. So far (we're 2 months into the Rig being used again for daily work) it's shown no signs in either performance drop or physical leaks that anything's gone awry. CPU temps have been consistent with pre-shipping numbers, and I've been checking the internals every couple of weeks, in case I can spot any signs of leaks.

 

Given my next rig planned is a server style one (akin to Linus' recent Personal Rig), I'm grateful that I'm now stateside for the foreseeable future too. Would NOT want to ship that overseas...