Shipping Hardware Cross-Country?

ae0nflx asks: "I just graduated from High School and the computer that my parents gave me four years ago has finally died. I've decided to spend all that money that I've been hoarding for a few summers on a new G5. The problem lies in the fact that for college I'll be moving to the East Coast (Upstate New York), from the foggy shores of the San Francisco Bay. Does anyone have any insight on how to ship my brand new machine cross country? Cheap would be good. I'll be flying back in late August and I don't think that I'll be able to take her back with me because I'm assuming she'll be a little big for the overhead bin... I'm not sure if I can trust this to the Postal Service alone." It may not be the same as shipping the big iron, but when you trust your hardware to any shipping company, be it Federal Express, or UPS, you do have the expectations that what you ship, will get to where it's going, and hopefully get there in one piece. Which shipping companies would you recommend for this job? For those who have done this, what experiences have you had, and what suggestions can you pass on to ae0nflx?

Comments

Use the packaging it came in.

[CaNeS]

Admittedly, I know nothing about Apple hardware, but generally speaking the packing materials that it came in should be more than sufficient to make the trip via FedEx or UPS. I shipped literally hundreds of PC's this way and never had one damaged.

Always Keep the Original Packaging

[D.A. Zollinger]

It may seem awkward to keep a large cardboard box, styrofoam moldings, and large plastic bags, but unless you plan on driving cross country with it in your trunk, those are the best tools in which to ensure that your baby gets to its destination safely, while in someone else's hands. If you have already disposed of the original packaging, you may be able to drop by the local Apple store, and ask if they kept the original packaging for one of display units that you could have.

As an alternative, you may be able to partially disassemble your machine based on what might get damaged if part of the internals of your computer came apart during shipping. For example: Pull out the hard drive, and keep that with you (as it has all of your important data), while pulling out all internal cards (PCI, AGP, ISA, etc) and putting them in seperate protective containters.

When Intel had their cartrige processors (during Pentium 2, and early Pentium 3 days), the massive cartrige and its heat sink had a tendancy to come off during transport, and flop about wildly inside the computer case during transport - damaging just about everything inside of a computer. If you feel that your heat sink/fan is too big you may consider removing those, along with your processor, and placing them in protective containers as well.

This way, you reduce the chance that one breakage would destroy the entire computer, and help to minimize your costs to repair/replace parts. As well, you also maximize the survivability of your important information.

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[Strange Ranger]

1) Forget cheap. You get what you pay for. Sorry.

2) Insure it. Pay the extra money to insure it up to 3 grand (your time invested is worth $$ too). And pack it insanely well. Assume they're going to punt it out of the truck into a puddle.

3) Ship it Fed Ex "Signature Required", then if you aren't home when it arrives they'll keep it at a Fed Ex pick up location. Very safe, although you'll have to go a mile or 3 to get it.

Fed Ex is the only carrier I have NEVER had a problem with. UPS is choice number 2. There is no chioce number 3.


Man how bored do you have to be to post shipping instructions to Ask Slashdot? How slow does the world have to be moving for Cliff to post this?

Oohhh neat, there's a puffy cloud outside that sort of looks like the internet.