On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 08:38:21 -0700
Steve Rikli <sr@genyosha.net> wrote:
> N.B.:  I'm not sure I can ship this thing -- even though it's a medium-
> sized tower, it's pretty heavy and I suspect the U.S. Post Office would
> balk; though maybe other folks have had success with UPS/FedEx for
> this sort of activity?

I bought an Alpha a couple of years ago. When I carried it home from
the postal office I noticed that something was loose inside. When I
came home I immediately opened the case..

"Hmm, where is the CPU? And what is that big metallic box doing down in
the corner?"

It turned out that the cpu, together with the cpu cooler, had come
loose and slid around inside the box..

When I came to my senses again, after 30 minutes or so, I started to
straighten out the pins of the cpu. I think maybe 1/4th of the pins were
bent. It took some time to get it into the socket again. And the machine
booted! That was the beginning of 2004. The machine has been running
mostly 24x7 since then.

So, if you are sending your Alpha by mail, make sure you do not
leave the cpu in its socket. :-)


Alphas are amazing,
	Lars Nordlund