Tiderfish

I am moving into a new house with a 2 car garage in two weeks.

I have several computers that I need to move. It is only a 6 mile trip so it won't take long. However the roads in this city are very bumpy. I need ideas on how to cushion the bed so I can place all my computers in and not wreck them in the process. Some of these PCs are loaded to the gills with expensive hardware. I have weighed my gamer PC at 72lbs.

I have looked into upholstery foam, but that stuff is expensive. Anyone have any other ideas?

My truck has a drop in bed liner. I was also considering dropping the tire pressure for this trip.

TheCollector

put them as close to the cab if not in the cab and use plenty of blankets I have an old fish crate i got off the docks down in Portland it can fit 4 big towers with plenty of padding on the bottom and sides. I had to move my computers too but over 56 miles of the crappiest roads in Maine just go slow and try not to hit any big bumps use plenty of blankets and pillows if you got them you could even go so far to rig up a suspension rig in the back with bungee cords and a Rubbermaid bin LOL

Tiderfish

Hummmm interesting.

Did they all survive your trip?

I am less concerned with the hard drives. Most are able to withstand 350G shock when powered down. I am more concerned with heavy video cards ripping the socket off the motherboard. Same for heavy heatsinks ripping off the CPU sockets.

01f1fiddy

a couple of screws and 2 plugs= pull your hard drives
same for any boards or cards that are not really cards more like mini bricks

TheCollector

thats a good idea too and what do you think im typing on LOL they all did

Tiderfish

Yea I considered that. However That would meal pulling something like 50 hard drives, and 20 video cards. I have about 26 computers and dismantling them all is less then ideal. My "tivo" alone has 11 hard drives for 5TB of TV recordings. =)

fordtrucknut

since your moving put your matress down and put the computers on it. then strap something over the top.

TheCollector

LOL well back up evertying on cd roms but damn thats allot of stuff why the hell do you need 5tb of tivo? you can always get a pal who has a smother ride and have him transport the stuff for you.

TheCollector

the problem is that the movement up and down will put stress on the video cards so the losser the better as long as it dosnt slam down hard or jump up hard it will be fine if you strap them down like that you will need new computers

Tiderfish

Thanks for the tips guys.

The mattress idea seems like a no brainier. We were planning on having a company move us, so they would move all the hard stuff and boxes. And I would move the computers, because I want them moved right.

Will a queen size mattress fit flat in a shortbed?

I also have another car I could transport them in. However its trunk is small and it would take at least 4 of 5 trips.

Plus I really wanted to use the truck. Transporting stuff is what I bought it for =)

When I say tivo, it's not really a Tivo. It is a computer I have jammed in a bunch of tuners, and hard drives, so it can record HD TV from my off-air antenna, and SD from the Comcast cable box. After the recording is complete, it scans the recordings, and looks for commercials, and indexes where they are. So once complete it allows you to totally skip the commercials. It can also compress the files to save space, or to dump to ipods/iphones. One hour of HD is about 8GB, so space is consumed quick. I also slapped in a Blu-Ray ROM, and can watch BD movies too. I got this because at the time, BD stand alone players were $500. And since it is always conected to the TV, I can stream Netflix and other shows from their network's websites.
Here is a link to the software I use called Beyond TV. There are some others, but I find this to be the best. It also allows other computers to connect and watch recorded shows. At less then $100, it's a great use of an old computer.
http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/