Best way to ship a computer?

[Bright_Star]

I'm giving my old 2002 computer to a relative. She lives in Virginia & tried to come up here tp pick it up but her job commitments makes it next to impossible to do. So she sent me money to have me mail it to her.
I'll be sending her the tower itself, keyboard, mouse & flat screen monitor. I'm worried about the tower being damaged in transit. She said I should ship it through UPS.So is that the best way to do that? I want it packed in such a way that it doesn't get harmed if the box falls.
What's the ideal way to do this?

[Dave1982]

Well, if by chance you still have the original boxes with the styrofoam and everything, they would be the best.
Failing that, I would actually go to a UPS store and let them do it. They have all the proper materials on hand and if they do the packing, they won't be able to deny an insurance claim due ot "improper customer packing."

Not saying that'll happen, but better safe than sorry.

If you do pack it yourself, I'd make sure to pick a sturdy box large enough to have at least 3 inches of packing material (peanuts, newspaper, whatever) between the computer and the box.

[dendawg]

What's the ideal way to do this?

Take it to the UPS store and have them package it.

If you actually wanna DIY, however:

Wrap both the tower and monitor at least twice in bubble wrap. Place the desktop into a box just big enough to hold it, with padding as needed, and place the box into a larger box with a minimum of 3 inches on all sides. Fill the voids with packing peanuts/air pillows/wadded newspaper shoved in densely enough to immobilize the inner box. An old board game box or something similar sized will be sufficient to hold the keyboard/mouse.

I strongly recommend you pack the monitor into another box and ship it separately. If you must, however, follow the same directions as above, but place the monitor box on top of desktop box with padding in between.

[Der Cute]

Den's pretty close on what I'd do. Double bubble wrap (but give yourself some bubbles to pop), and pad the open spaces in the box. I'd have a layer of padding, then the tower/wrap, surround with more padding, and padding on top. Then close/tape box. Jiggle it, see if you can hear it shifting..more padding. (Crunched up plastic bags are wonderful, or old paper..etc) Any power cords, extra USB cords, ethernet..twist up, in a ziplock, stuff in the padding. OOH. Where are the CDs for installing????

Is the monitor a LCD or a CRT? If it's an LCD, take off the base if you can..Pictures before, during after to have her re-assemble it. Wrap front of monitor with old towel. Tape towel loose ends to back of monitor. Again, Bubble wrap, and concentrate on the LCD screen part, no pokey objects. Fold up vid cord and elec cord, tape or twisty tie and keep in a bag on the side. Padding/monitor/padding again, tape her up.

Wrap cords around mouse and keypad. Put the bottom of the monitor in here, it's a sharp object. OOH. Get her a power strip/surge protector.

Depending on how noob she is with machines, I would label each bag with the cords it holds in it. MONITOR POWER CORD. MONITOR VIDEO CORD. So when she unpacks everything and it's all on the floor...she'll be able to discern who's what.
Write out instructions in an email. Have a lot of juice on your phone, be prepared.

Good luck, and thank you for recycling puters to people who need them.