Desktop on a Plane

Hi, this is my first post,

We're planning on emigrating from the UK to New Zealand at the end of this year, and something recently occurred to me: we've just spent over 150 quid on upgrading my computer, it's gotta come with us. But I really really don't want to put it in the hull of a plane to be chucked-around, so that means I'll have to take it as hand luggage. It fits the size requirements for hand-luggage - it's a micro-atx build - but when you put your hand luggage through the machine it's scanned by an x-ray - will this fry it? I checked the Internet which proved inconclusive and asked my (very knowledgeable) physics teacher, who said he didn't know.

So, has anyone taken a desktop on a plane? Did it work afterwards? Could I shield it in any way (which might look suspicious if the machine can't see something in my bag)? (Would that be necessary?)

I'll probably be going via Heathrow, Hong Kong and Auckland probably with BA, if that's relevant.

Thanks in advance,
-gabtdw

If you are that worried take all the important parts out of the case and package them properly and mark them all up as fragile. But make sure you make proper back ups of your hard drive on something that cant be easily damaged by shock ie a DVD

I was under the misconception that laptops were specially shielded in some way, but if all computers react the same to the x-ray, then that's OK

We're not shipping anything to NZ, so I won't be able to put my PC in a container, and I need to fit all my stuff in my big suitcase and even after various precautions have been taken, I still wouldn't feel comfortable chucking my computer into the hull of a plane.

Thanks though, I think that's answered my question