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Bringing my computer with me, I'm gonna strip out pretty much most of the important things in my computer, put it in a anti static bag then wrapping it in my clothes in my luggage

Its gonna be carry on, so of course I'm gonna treat it with delicate care except for the chassis which will be airport shipping, I know the risk, but I'm gonna bubble wrap with MAYBE some foam and put it in a separate luggage by itself

Probably only the motherboard and CPU will be left in the chassis depending on how big it is

Is this ok or is this not safe enough for my harddrive/GPU etc? Please help me out, its my first time traveling w/ a desktop

Also do I have to take out the computer parts when they are scanning bags etc

I'll also be putting my monitor in my backpack along with keyboards and other accessories, I fear this may be a hassle when they scan...

Didn't know where else to ask this question lol

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    Is there any particular reason you cant get these parts shipped by a shipping company (besides maybe cost). Otherwise, is there a particular reason for moving your whole desktop (and not taking a tablet / laptop)? What airport are you flying from and to? You will probably have to take out the screen however the parts can most likely stay. There is however a high chance that they will ask to see the parts as they are a non-standard shape and will show up on the scanners. You will probably have to take the screen out as well (as it will probably get treated similarly to laptops).
    – The Wandering Coder
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 2:21
  • Depending on what airport you are leaving from will determine what you have to take out of your bag. Some airports want all electronics (including cables) taken out. Some just want your laptop put on a separate tray. items that appear solid on the scanners may be requested to be removed from your bag for further inspection but failing you having anything unusually sharp, dangerous or on the banned list, you should get all of your pieces through fine.
    – The Wandering Coder
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 2:23
  • I would recommend putting them in a separate case with some foam inserts. My brother did this a while ago when returning from college but he got lucky as he just wrapped all his things in his clothes; including delicate parts like the RAM chips. Static electricity can easily build up in the controlled cabin of aircraft.
    – Burhan Khalid
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 5:40

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I will answer one part of the question because I have a lot of experience with flying with monitors. It's not easy. Monitors are fragile and you want them big and the airlines don't want you to carry big things around and don't care about fragile. This post will be full of product endorsement but I do not link them, Google is your friend. This is the result of years of research, most of the products mentioned in here are totally one of a kind.

I found two good solutions: a 23" monitor fits well in the Geargrip GGLCD2WK1 shield then put my pillow in a hardshell suitcase lay down the shielded monitor on it and check the whole thing in. The AOC E2351F is extremely well suited for this purpose because it's extremely thin and it has a light weight stand which packs flat. Neat.

There are USB powered, Displaylink monitors of various sizes, 15, 16, even 22", I don't care about those. The Gechic 2501H stands out because it's 15" and full HD and has HDMI and VGA inputs but 15" is not a lot.

In general, carrying on a full HD monitor is very tricky because the longest edge of the common carry on size is shorter than most full HD monitors. You can try to get away with the shielded AOC as described above in a rolltop backpack. I did, it's not a good experience. My current solution is a Sharp LL-201A but any other similar vaguely 20-ish display tablet monitor will do. Normal monitors at this size are 1440x900 but some of these tablet monitors are properly full HD. The next hurdle: it's very hard to find a reasonably priced lightweight VESA stand which allows lifting the monitor off the table, AFAIK the only solution is the K&M 23150 VESA adapter and the K&M 19685 tripod. Another problem is the extreme cost of these touch monitors. Currently my choice of backpack is the Magma DIGI Control-Backpack XL because it is padded up the wazoo and the internal laptop pocket is so huge the 20" monitor fits and the outside pocket where ordinarily the backpack strips would hide is perfectly usable as a pocket for the laptop itself. It's padded too (although it lacks bottom padding which is annoying, I am adding some velcro so that the laptop doesn't fall to the bottom.).

This backpack is 510mm inside which is enough -- even if barely so -- for a very narrow bezel 22" monitor. So I have a HP L2201x in the mail, I even have an idea of how to VESA mount it, I will report back if it succeeds. It's going to be a tight fit. Like the AOC, this needs an external power brick but I like separating the weight if it creates monitors as thin as these two. Edit: nope the L2201x is too big. But, I like it more than the E2351F and if you grab a pair of VESA 100-200mm rails like the FPMA-VESA120 and glue (two part epoxy or liquid weld) one of them lengthwise such that it hangs about half off the monitor and put the other as close to the hinge as possible then you can use the K&M mount with it which creates a really neat solution.

As for scanning, I never needed to take out my monitor from the backpack. I suspect it has something to do with no batteries inside.

Edit: the VESA stand for the YiyNova Tablet is available separately and it's a good travel stand. Alternatively, there's the Bexin M225S tripod which might be a better fit than the K&M tripod because the latter does not spread wide enough to keep the monitor stable.

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  • This doesn't seem to answer the OPs questions (Is this ok or is this not safe enough for my harddrive/GPU?) or (Do I have to take out the computer parts when they are scanning bags?), but instead answers a possible way of taking it safely. You may wish to include answers to those in your answer.
    – The Wandering Coder
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 4:13
  • "I'll also be putting my monitor in my backpack" -- I have addressed that part but I added a (small) bit on scanning.
    – user4188
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 6:32
  • I got stopped a month ago at NRT because there were too many chargers in my bag (x5). They made me remove the Laptop, 2 tablets, cords and the pocket keyboard. Maybe my cables looked like they were attached to something slightly more... prone to explosion?
    – The Wandering Coder
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 6:45
  • Aren't you worried that answers based around a shopping list of specific products tend to become unhelpfully outdated after some months?
    – RedGrittyBrick
    Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 10:35
  • Not in this case. Most product listed here are old (indeed, neither the L2201x nor the AOC E2351F is manufactured any longer and the 23150 tripod seems to be on its last legs) and the industry is not exactly moving in the direction of solving these problems.
    – user4188
    Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 18:21

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