CPUs, motherboards, RAM, drives & power supplies
Small parts fail small: bent pins, crushed corners, shocked drives, mixed-up cables. Each has one rule that matters.
CPUs — protect the contacts
Clamshell or original box, never loose
AMD AM4 chips carry their pins on the chip; Intel and AM5 chips have delicate pads and leave a socket full of pins behind. Either way, a CPU loose in a bag of foam is a bent-contact story. Use the original clamshell or a hard CPU case.
Small item, real box
Tiny parcels get thrown hardest. Put the clamshell in a small box with padding, then treat that as the item inside a normal shipping box.
Motherboards — the socket is the money
Socket cap on, if you have it
That plastic cap exists to protect hundreds of socket pins. If you kept it, this is its moment. If not, make certain nothing can press on the socket area.
Anti-static bag, original box, accessories bagged
Board in its bag, in its box, with the I/O shield, antennas, and cables in their own bag so they can't scratch the board. No original box: bag the board, sandwich it between rigid foam sheets, and box it with the two-inch rule.
Nothing heavy mounted
Sell the board bare or with only the M.2 drives installed. A board shipped with a cooler or GPU attached is the full-build problem without the case's protection.
RAM and SSDs — easy, but not careless
RAM in blister packs or hard cases
Original blister packaging is ideal. Otherwise anti-static bag plus a rigid container — modules that can flex against each other chip heatspreaders.
M.2 and SATA SSDs
Anti-static bag, small rigid box, padding. They're robust; the anti-static part is the part that matters.
Hard drives — shocks kill them
Two inches of foam, every side
A 3.5-inch mechanical drive is the most shock-sensitive thing in PC hardware. Anti-static bag, then genuinely thick foam on all six sides — the drive should float in the middle of the box.
Erase your data first
Securely wipe every drive before it ships — for your own privacy above all. A drive arriving with your old files is a bad look and a worse risk.
Power supplies — heavy, dense, and cable-picky
Double-wall and well-filled
A PSU is a solid metal brick; it will win any fight with a thin box. Double-wall box, two-inch rule, cables in their own bag.
Only ship the unit's own modular cables
Modular cable pinouts differ between brands and even between models of the same brand — mixing them can destroy the hardware they're plugged into. Include exactly the cables that belong to this unit, and say so in the listing.
Before it leaves your hands
Photograph it
The item with its serial number visible, then the packed box before you seal it.
Attach it to the order
Upload the photos as proof of condition on the order page. The record freezes at handover and counts if anything is disputed.
Keep the receipt
The drop-off receipt proves when the carrier took custody. Tracking takes it from there automatically.