travel Putting my PC in a suitcase? (Question)

[PopsMG]

Hi, so I'm currently getting ready for a big move and a little short on time (Next week is the date) I was wondering if it's possible for me to put my PC in a suitcase, pad it with clothes and put a T-Shirt or two inside to keep everything inside safe, not much of a tech savy guy, also don't have access to any of that PC foam that typically is used.

[Guest]

Your main concern is static electricity. Other than that, move it in whatever you want. 

[RadiatingLight]

Yes you can, but you should take lots of precautions.

Take out the GPU and any other heavy PCI-e devices. If you've Linus talking about shipping PCs you'll know that even WITH foam on the inside, they often rip out of the slot entirely and ruin everything. -- Take the GPU out, wrap it in a shirt or something, and pack it separately.

 

If you have a big tower cooler (or even a medium-sized one like a hyper-212) it's probably worth it to un-mount the cooler and pack it separately as well, just like the GPU. (maybe for a single tower cooler like hyper 212 you could get away with just lots of tshirts stuffed inside, but idk)

 

take out the HDDs and put them in your carry-on luggage. (if you're flying or handing your bag over to someone else) They'll get abused as checked baggage and might die.

 

Anything else that's heavy and not secured tight-as-a-rock to the case should also be removed.

[PopsMG]

2 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

Yes you can, but you should take lots of precautions.

Take out the GPU and any other heavy PCI-e devices. If you've Linus talking about shipping PCs you'll know that even WITH foam on the inside, they often rip out of the slot entirely and ruin everything. -- Take the GPU out, wrap it in a shirt or something, and pack it separately.

 

If you have a big tower cooler (or even a medium-sized one like a hyper-212) it's probably worth it to un-mount the cooler and pack it separately as well, just like the GPU. (maybe for a single tower cooler like hyper 212 you could get away with just lots of tshirts stuffed inside, but idk)

 

take out the HDDs and put them in your carry-on luggage. (if you're flying or handing your bag over to someone else) They'll get abused as checked baggage and might die.

 

Anything else that's heavy and not secured tight-as-a-rock to the case should also be removed.

Would it be a good idea to wrap the gpu and keep on me, say my backpack? same with the hardrives? my main concern, is I don't relaly know how to take parts out, usually scared about possibly breaking something that I know nothing about.

[RadiatingLight]

Just now, PopsMG said:

Would it be a good idea to wrap the gpu and keep on me, say my backpack? same with the hardrives? my main concern, is I don't relaly know how to take parts out, usually scared about possibly breaking something that I know nothing about.

Taking out the graphics card is super easy. I'm sure you can do it without breaking anything. Maybe don't remove the CPU cooler if you're not confident with your abilities though.

Unmounted, the graphics card is not at risk of breaking, so you can throw it in your suitcase.

 

Taking out the harddrives is medium-difficulty (could be easy, depends on the case) -- if you really don't know how, it's probably okay to leave them in, just make sure you have everything important on them backed up, and keep in mind there's a small chance that a hard drive will die. (this doesn't apply to SSDs)

[PopsMG]

3 hours ago, RadiatingLight said:

Taking out the graphics card is super easy. I'm sure you can do it without breaking anything. Maybe don't remove the CPU cooler if you're not confident with your abilities though.

Unmounted, the graphics card is not at risk of breaking, so you can throw it in your suitcase.

 

Taking out the harddrives is medium-difficulty (could be easy, depends on the case) -- if you really don't know how, it's probably okay to leave them in, just make sure you have everything important on them backed up, and keep in mind there's a small chance that a hard drive will die. (this doesn't apply to SSDs)

Thank you so much for the help, I'll make sure to update if everything goes well or otherwise.

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, PopsMG said:

Hi, so I'm currently getting ready for a big move and a little short on time (Next week is the date) I was wondering if it's possible for me to put my PC in a suitcase, pad it with clothes and put a T-Shirt or two inside to keep everything inside safe, not much of a tech savy guy, also don't have access to any of that PC foam that typically is used.

It depends, are you driving, going on the train, ferry or plane?

 

If you are driving, that's fine unless you have a heavy heatsink on the CPU or GPU. If you are flying, I would not recommend taking it as the handling will all but certainly get damaged. If you are taking a train or ferry and your luggage will be out of site, the same precautions that you would use for air travel would apply. If it will not be out of your sight, (eg you are carrying it on yourself) then you can just ignore most safety precautions. Just don't pack it in plastic bags. Just make sure you don't put anything static-cling problems in the suitcase (eg synthetics like polyester, rayon or nylon) You can also just protect the ports by taping a small piece of cardboard over the rear ports and front ports and that should be sufficient.

 

With air travel, there is a risk that the suitcase will be dropped from a height of 10' so nothing you can do can save a PC dropped from that height, the impact alone will rip heatsinks from the mounts. With the train, it's usually just sloppy handling, with things being thrown from 3' away onto carts. It's more survivable, but you can also just take most computers in luggage that you can carryon.

 

But if you're driving, I wouldn't be too worried if it's in a suitcase.