Question Transporting my tempered glass PC case

[sam.bird91]

I've been invited to a LAN party, which involves packing up my PC and transporting it by car to my friend's house. I have a Corsair 4000D that has a tempered glass side panel. I intend to take the GPU out and transport it in the case it came in. But I wondering how is the best way to transport the rest of the PC? Should I take the whole glass side panel off and wrap it up, and then put a piece of cardboard or something to cover the rest of the PC? Or would it not be safe to transport the PC opened up like that?

 

[Eximo]

I've generally not had issues with transporting a system with the GPU installed. Just lay the computer on its side such that the GPU has the PCIe slot facing down. That would place the tempered glass away from things as well. Wrap the whole computer in a blanket so that the tempered glass doesn't touch any sharp edges.

The issues with general shipping, where you don't know what orientation the system will take a hit in, is the reason to remove the GPU and large air coolers before shipping.

Now if you have a vertical mount GPU, yeah I would probably remove it.

 

[sam.bird91]

The GPU sits stuck out horizontally when the PC is upright, but if it's down on the non-glass side then it would be sticking up vertically. You think that'd be safe to transport? I have the box for it anyway and it's not exactly difficult to take out and then put back in, so might just to be safe. It's the glass I'm worried about.

 

[Eximo]

Over relatively short distances, yes. I have done it many times with some pretty beefy GPUs. Not quite as big as todays though. Of course that was also the days before chassis were actually designed for multi-slot GPUs and before they started putting metal around PCIe slots.

As long as your GPU can't wiggle around in the slot or has excessive sag already, it should be fine.

Had system memory work its way loose once, but that was a good 3 hour drive away.

The risk to the glass is if it hits a sharp edge or takes a seriously heavy blow. A blanket or towel should be sufficient. Just don't put things on top of it. Make sure the whole thing can't slide around.

The other option would be to take it off the case and wrap it separately. But to me that just increases the risk of dropping it or it moving around.

 

[sam.bird91]

Distance is relative I guess. A two hour drive for Americans is nothing, but it's like half the way across the country here. Thanks for the advice.

 

[geofelt]

Lay the pc flat in the trunk or wherever.
Glass side on top.
Put a blanket or such around it so that it will not slide if you have to make a sudden stop.
You risk more problems by taking parts our and replacing them.

 

[Eximo]

Distance is relative I guess. A two hour drive for Americans is nothing, but it's like half the way across the country here. Thanks for the advice.

No still a trip you have to plan for. The last big lan party I went to was an event ages ago. Athlon XP 2500+ if I remember correctly. Counterstrike Source was the hot 'new' game.

Typical Lan party back in the day was in town, so under 10 miles, ~16km.

The most recent lan party I went to was also in that city 3 hours away, but that was friends, and we were playing retro games so I slapped my old GT1030 into my old 4770k into an NR200 Mini-ITX case, rather than dragging my main system over there. Would have transported fine, but I don't want to carry that thing around.

Even the GT1030 was way overkill. Most everyone else had late 90s and early 2000s hardware.

 

[USAFRet]

I've been invited to a LAN party, which involves packing up my PC and transporting it by car to my friend's house. I have a Corsair 4000D that has a tempered glass side panel. I intend to take the GPU out and transport it in the case it came in. But I wondering how is the best way to transport the rest of the PC? Should I take the whole glass side panel off and wrap it up, and then put a piece of cardboard or something to cover the rest of the PC? Or would it not be safe to transport the PC opened up like that?

If driving, just lay it down flat, on the back seat or trunk. GPU vertical.

Consider a prebuilt PC. It has traveled thousands of miles, been handled by a LOT of people and machines.
And magically, ends up at your door, unbroken.
A couple of miles in the back of your car is childs play.

 

[Eximo]

If driving, just lay it down flat, on the back seat or trunk. GPU vertical.

Consider a prebuilt PC. It has traveled thousands of miles, been handled by a LOT of people and machines.
And magically, ends up at your door, unbroken.
A couple of miles in the back of your car is childs play.

OEMs often have GPU support brackets for large GPUs. And some ship with foam inserts/expanding foam.

Mid-range cards tend to rely on the expansion slot screws only though.