will my pc get damaged if i take it on a plane

[Cuboid88]

Hey im moving houses and i was just wondering if it would be safe for me to take my pc in a suitcase along with some bubblewrap for protection or if not, any other way of me to take it on a plane also any advice you could give me so my move goes smoothly without my having to open my pc and see just everything broken? (btw the case is a phanteks p400 tempered glass)

[Mira Yurizaki]

Anything that hangs off the motherboard by a significant amount (say a couple of inches) should be removed, even if it's mounted to something else. So basically all the expansion cards and CPU cooler, if it's a tower one, needs to come off. If you can find ESD safe filler, then you could get away from doing this.

 

Baggage handlers don't care about handling your luggage carefully, so they'll just toss the thing around.

[Enderman]

First of all, chances are they won't let you take it because of size restrictions and also the sharp metal components inside that could be used as weapons.

 

Second of all, GPUs and large heatsinks should always be removed during PC transport.

[Firewrath9]

So i would first remove the CPU cooler, if it is an air cooler as it is really heavy and applys stress to the MOBO,

Remove GPU,

then just the expansion thing they put when they ship prebuits, 

put the air cooler and gpu back in their original boxes and yolo

[dtaflorida]

I've taken my PC as a carry-on an international flight when I was moving to Australia back in 2005. And then I did it again when I moved back to the US in 2011. I'd say take off the cpu heat sink and video card if they're big. As I recall, I did neither of those things... but I ran a stock heat sink and a low end video card so neither were especially large and likely to cause much damage if they got loose.

[UnwantedLinks]

You might actually tell some attendee's or greeters/baggage handlers to actually take some care of it. I garuntee it alot of large airlines do.

[vanished]

As bad a rep as shipping companies sometimes get, I would trust it to them over any airline.  I highly doubt that you'll be allowed to take it as carry-on for a variety of reasons, and if you check it in, it will almost certainly be destroyed.  To quote what we were told after they broke something that was well protected and of more than sufficient strength, "we are not a delicate goods carrier".  I hate to think what would happen to a PC... never mind the GPU and CPU coolers snapping and ripping off the motherboard - the entire case would be badly dented (or crushed, depending how strong it was).

[Trik'Stari]

I wouldn't recommend it. Also congrats on the nice PC case (phanteks fan here).

 

 

Look into some expanding foam packing material on Amazon, and probably have it shipped, marked fragile, with appropriate insurance. If you want to be extra careful, disassemble it, place things in original packing materials (if you kept them, you should have) and ship that way.

 

More expensive yes, but more expensive than having to buy a new GPU/CPU/etc.?

[Tog Driver]

Well, if you drop it out of the plane. . .

 

then yes, it would get damaged. . .

[Z3R0 CHANC3]

Just put padding around it, it should be fine.  If it can survive falling onto the floor off of your bed, you'd be fine, it's not likely to encounter anything more extreme than that.