Question about Shipping a Computer

[NJCher]

Can I ship a computer sideways or does it have to be standing in the upright position?

I'm shipping my brother an extra computer I have. Unfortunately, I threw out the original packing materials.

So I went to a nearby office park and found some computer boxes from another type of computer. I think these boxes will work fairly well if I can ship the computer lying on its side. It's surrounded by styrofoam and packed very securely.

Anybody know?


Cher

[kiahzero]

1. Shouldn't matter

The only reason you even have to stand a computer in the upright position generally is because of the orientation of the CD drives.

[Maddy McCall]

2. It shouldn't hurt.

[Poiuyt]

3. I would double box it just to make sure

I received a used monitor once that was packed with that aerosal expanding foam. The monitor was put in a plastic bag first, of course. Worked pretty good.

[Vitruvius]

4. Modern hard drives "park" their heads whenever the power is turned off --

and this also readies them for shipping.

[starroute]

5. We repeatedly shipped my son's computer back and forth to college

One year the UPS guys managed to dent a rear upper corner, but the computer still worked fine. I think they're pretty sturdy. If there are any problems after it arrives, opening the case and making sure the cards are well seated would probably correct it.

I wasn't as happy about shipping the monitor, though. Nothing exactly broke, but it seemed to shorten its lifespan. I gather monitors have a lot more internal wiring than computers, and the connections are delicately soldered in place. Computers just have a few major cables, and everything plugs together.

[amerikat]

6. Dell and Gateway ship them all the time

[NJCher]

7. OK, thanks everybody

Appreciate the advice.

Now I'm thinking twice about shipping the monitor, though.


Cher

[HamstersFromHell]

8. Never ship computers USPS

and it's preferable to ship them FedEx than UPS. FedEx seems to take a bit more care in not tossing boxes around.

I've had computers shipped UPS to arrive with the RAM completely knocked out of it's slots...and that takes some kind of impact. (Yes, they were packaged very well.)

As for monitors, unless you're shipping a huge one, the prices of shipping alone is approaching the price of buying a good used one locally.

[DS1]

10. I've had the same roughness with FedEx

Twice I've had the cpu unseated even when using original case packaging.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Whatever you do, be sure to back up any important files

I shipped my desktop in a moving van with the rest of my stuff when I moved back to Minnesota and backed everything up to my laptop to take on the plane so that I could work while waiting for the van to cross the country.

The desktop never worked quite right after that, and in a couple of weeks, the hard drive utterly died, so I was really glad to have the laptop with all my files on it.