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Moving my computer overseas
DBReed
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm moving to Norway to start a new job in a few weeks, and I'll be taking my computer with me. I have a few questions:
1.) What's the best way to ship this thing? Should I take it apart and ship everything separately? Do the individual components need to be in anti-static bags? What about sensitive components like the hard drive?
2.) Almost all of my games have been purchased through Steam. Am I going to run into any DRM problems due to moving to another country, or does Steam not care where I'm playing?
3.) My PSU is rated 100-240v. This means I just need to get a new power cable with the appropriate plug when I get there, right?
That's all I can think of, but if you can think of anything else I should be concerned about, please let me know.
1.) What's the best way to ship this thing? Should I take it apart and ship everything separately? Do the individual components need to be in anti-static bags? What about sensitive components like the hard drive?
2.) Almost all of my games have been purchased through Steam. Am I going to run into any DRM problems due to moving to another country, or does Steam not care where I'm playing?
3.) My PSU is rated 100-240v. This means I just need to get a new power cable with the appropriate plug when I get there, right?
That's all I can think of, but if you can think of anything else I should be concerned about, please let me know.
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2) No harm emailing their support for that, i.e. telling them you are moving. AFAIK, they are huge on anti fraud and will start questioning when you start using your account on the other side of the globe. DRM should not be an issue
3) Just make sure you set your PSU to the correct voltage. If you want to be cautious, just make sure your PSU is the first thing you plug in. And find a place that sells PC hardware
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My Steam games worked fine, they seem to have no region coding.
3)Correct - any civilized place in Europe runs 230V 50Hz and this even includes Norway :-)
This is the exact way my fiance did it (he happens to be Norwegian), primarily because he didn't trust moving stuff any other way. He has bad luck with computers. :P He put the motherboard (since it's the most sensitive and crucial component) and hard drive in his backpack and the rest in his checked bags. Basically pack everything in a checked bag such that it can't move and is relatively unlikely to be affected by static. We used most of the original packaging stuff came in, but I'm sure there are other ways to do it. Just immobilize and pad everything (my advice would be the same if you were shipping stuff anyway).
As for your power supply, yeah, it'll work just fine as long as you flip the switch on the power supply before you go plugging it in. If you don't flip this switch, uhh, you're probably going to need a new PSU. :P
As for Steam, yep, you shouldn't have any problems EXCEPT we've had issues with buying things sometimes. You may want to/need to talk to Steam Support to get that sorted out. (I don't know if you'll actually have the problem we had since I think the issue was with buying the EU version of something with a US card while being located in Canada or something like that. Ohhhh international relationships.) Anyway, all of your games will definitely work, although depending on the game you might have to confirm that it's you trying to play and not somebody who hacked your account (e-mail verification). While we're talking about games, you should also know that while most console games and movies will be region-locked and not work on your console, games for PS3, PSP, Vita, and GBA/DS (not DSi-only or 3DS) are region-free! So you can buy those locally at insanely high prices if you want! Yay!
Also, this is the only bag I found on Amazon that looks big enough for my motherboard. Seems like overkill, and it's expensive. Anyone have a cheaper alternative?