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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?
Back up your hard drive, either to another HD, or tape, or DVD. Remove the hard drive, carry it with you. Leave the backup with someone trust worthy. Ship the machine UPS or Fedex, insured for enough to replace it. The hardware is basically worthless, it's your data that has value. As long as the machine is at all replaceable, you have no worries.
But losing your pr0n collection, *that's* bad.
Pull the hard drive, then ship it UPS (or Fedex, or UPS) insured. About 50% of the time they'll trash your computer but they'll give you cash equal to what *you paid* for your computer, not what it's worth today. Think of it as regular free upgrades.
As long as you don't trust them with your data this is a much easier policy than trying to figure out a safe way to ship it.
As far as packaging, I've had good luck double boxing it (put computer inside tight fitting box packed with foam, put box inside larger looser box packed with styrofoam peanuts). The outside box ends up looking trashed but the inside box is fine. Again this is with pulling the harddrives and carrying those personally.
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.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
Airborne is late more often the FedEx who is late more often then UPS. Personally, I'd ship it UPS, and add $3K in insurance. I'd ship it ground, (it'll probably end up on a plane, but if you can deal with not having it for 5-6 days it's a lot cheaper).
Get it ensured. Keep the insurance slip. Make sure it's a must be signed for shipment, and call UPS to have it be arrange for pickup if you don't get it the first time they attempt to deliver it.
If it's not there, and you don't have a note, call UPS. Check the website.
If it's not there within 3 business days of the scheduled delivery date, you are screwed, call UPS, file a tracer. Start the process of getting your insurance money.
Every Tom, Dick and Harry on here is going to tell you their personal story about how they got screwed by carrier X, and how they will never use carrier X again. They think the carrier has some personal vendetta. It's comical. All of the carriers move millions of items a week. An success rate of 5 9's, still means a lot of screw ups a week. Make sure you have the documentation, make sure you take care of it quickly, make sure you follow up with them. You can successfully get your refund if it gets lost or damaged, sometimes it takes a little while, if you can't deal with that rent a car, drive the damn thing.
Kirby