How much gold is on a average 2000+ desktop

This is from the forum rules section.


Our Stance on Refining Topics - DANGEROUS

I wanted to make a sticky in here about our rules regarding precious metal refining. I don't believe there was ever a clear thread or notice regarding this so I'm posting one now.

First and foremost - Refining involves chemicals and processes that can KILL you. Refining is DANGEROUS. That is not to be taken lightly, trying to refine, without knowing what you're doing, can KILL YOU and OTHERS AROUND YOU.

This forum is not the place to become knowledgeable about, or to educate others about the details on how to refine precious metals.

We don't want discussions starting here with detailed posts about how to refine, the mixture of chemicals, how to or not to be safe about it. This is not the place for that type of discussion, refining is an entirely different trade from "Scrapping".

Detailed postings regarding the refining process have always been and will be continue to be removed when they come up. Again this is serious stuff and this forum is not the place to learn or teach these things.

If you want to learn about, or talk about gold refining (or the refining of other precious metals) please visit the Gold Refining Forum 'GRF'.
GOLD REFINING FORUM - GOLD REFINERS HELPING ONE ANOTHER

Full article at Scrap Metal Forum: http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scrap...#ixzz3tXKs2gHk

Thanks for the response, I know how to refine cpu, gold fingers and the ic chips for gold. It is not that hard if you take the necessary procoutions.(gloves, gas masks, ventilation and stabalize the toxic acids when your done)

After the refining (the way we want to do it) you end up with pure 24kt gold, the psu and rest you dont use can sell for scrap value.

We sell and buy gold on professional scale so have connections with official gold meltets wich can give us a good price.

I just bought 4kg of cpus for a good price and 26 full towers to start with.

Was just wondering how much value a desktop system has so I know how much to pay max for a pc, most of all how much gold is in it on average.

I know most common cpus of today have 0.05 grams of gold in them.

Important note is that we want to do this for fun/hobby, find out the whole process and the feeling you done it yourself not to get rich of it.

I do understand by now it is much easier and much more profitable to scrap pcs from all over and sell parts to gether.

The answer is its a secret, a trade secret that those who are major players in the business are not going to share with anyone. But I am certain the answer changes constantly and is not repeatable to 100% accuracy.

You are the one to answer the question for yourself. 73 Mike

I doubt they will be so kind at the GRF if u post such a common question as "how much gold is in them old computers"....you can find plenty of old computers for less than $20 each via CL or surplus....a hobby in my opinion is something that does not make money so just buy some old junkers and do your thing....id say a good sample size would be 50 of the exact same unit but you may need more

only real way you can get an AVERAGE (because not all will yield the same and not all methods get the same amount returned) is to do assays of a large mount of material. As you do more and more, your average will get more accurate. I would say that the only way you can get a reasonably accurate method is to send the material to a ewaste recovery specialist. There are some out there and they will happily give you assay results (for a fee). This is about the only way you will get a close approximation of how much material is in X item on average. And do not forget, gold is just ONE of the materials that can be recovered....people forget that many times there is a silver or copper mask for the circuitry before it is gold plated....those materials are well worth the recovery too (only in LARGE batches from what I have read).

Not the best answer, but again...most of what you are asking is info that we ALL in the ewaste industry would LOVE to have (keeps us from getting ripped off). The main issues as miked said is that those companies tend to keep that info very secret.

Since we don't refine or discuss it here, I doubt that we can give you a good answer. WBSTS's answer is completely right- you'd need an analysis done. The amount will also depend on the efficiency of the refiner.

Considering that there have been two major CPU makers since 2000 (AMD and Intel), and over 20 CPU sockets since that time (Including a couple of slot-based CPUs). This is such a broad question that I don't think an average could be accurately counted.

Thank you for all the nice answers even when this is something you dont talk about on this forum

I do understand "the less people know the better", just thought after all this years there would be a "leaked" list or more info.

Lets hope nobody outbids me on the deal im bidding on then i bought 26 complete desktops (big towers) for 2,60€ each as my first lot.

In the meanwhile i will read some more on this forum.

Originally Posted by Akkie

Thank you for all the nice answers even when this is something you dont talk about on this forum

I do understand "the less people know the better", just thought after all this years there would be a "leaked" list or more info.

Lets hope nobody outbids me on the deal im bidding on then i bought 26 complete desktops (big towers) for 2,60€ each as my first lot.

In the meanwhile i will read some more on this forum.

Photos are nice in case you do win the auction. IF you have not considered it think about re-selling complete computers or working parts. The re-selling of parts is a far better return than PM recover. Mike

As far as price per computer, a year or two ago I was paying $5.00 per but now that prices have dropped so hard I am paying .12 per lb.
Usually runs 2.00 - 2.40 per unless their old Pentium 1's and 2's, those are a little heavier.

I have literally processed (Meaning recovered and refined) hundreds if not thousands of Pentium Pros. There is not even .5 grams per CPU, never, not ever. On average I am able to recover (And by the way, it's a two step process, first you recover the gold, then you refine it. It's not extraction, that is another process where you might use a solvent for example, to extract gold from a dirty, acidic solution) .33 grams. A few times, when I have run individual Pentium Pros, I have recovered and refined .35 grams.

If you have recovered and refined any precious metals, you would understand that it is impossible to put even an average value on computer systems, even if you specify the year. The reason for this is that each computer manufacturer uses different technology to plate gold, and different components made by different manufacturers. High end internal cards may have a higher gold content, better components might have more palladium, gold, silver, etc.

As well, you can only recover as much value from a computer system, as you are skilled at recovering. A really good refiner is going to recover more value than one that is not so good. There are also other processes in which you recover values from waste solution that might not have precipitated at first.

In any case, you would do well not to ask these types of questions on this forum. A better question may perhaps be "what should I pay for full computer systems dating from 2000". I am sure there are experienced people here who might be able to help you in this endeavor.

You would also do well to consider this. Older computer systems, specially that contain CPUs that are more valuable, are very difficult to find in any bulk. And it's in bulk that you might be able to make money. You would do far better if you put away your dreams of riches, recognize that you have gold fever, and look for a real viable way you might make income doing this type of work. Take the suggestions others have made to heart. Refining is certainly not something just anyone should be doing. It does involve acids, gases, processes that are dangerous in the extreme. I have personally known people who were both hobby refiners, and worked in the industry who have experience accidents that could very well have ended up in someone's death. One such example was someone who mixed a particularly explosive solution with specific metals that caused it to explode, violently. If not for the fact that they were taking extra precautions, it very well could have meant their life.

If you have not refined anything, or used chemistry other than high school, you have a very long road ahead of you before you could, or should be recovering or refining anything. Period. I do not say this lightly. You have to educate yourself, a lot, before ever attempting to refine anything. It's not something you just read, and do. You should really ask questions on the Gold Refining Forum. But I warn you, be very careful what questions you ask. Read posts first. Matter of fact, do what is suggested prior to asking any questions. You should understand the terminology prior to posting anything, and even then make sure you know what you are asking before doing so.

Under no circumstance should you attempt to recover any metals, precious or not, from electronic scrap until you are fully aware of what exactly it entails, have educated yourself or sought education at the college level, and even then you should be doing many other things besides prior to ever attempting anything.

It's also a very tough business to be in, if you are doing anything more than hobby refining, or trying to make a business out of refining, you have a lot longer and harder road ahead of you than you might realize. The margins are very difficult to work within first of all, the proper licensing and permitting to do so legally take a lot of time. You must have a proper location, with the correct fume scrubbing, equipment, etc. You will be required to have your installation plans drawn up by an engineer, and it's only specially licensed engineers who can submit the proper paperwork to the EPA, and perhaps your local entities that require special permits. In my area, I had to deal with the Federal EPA, the California EPA and another entity called Bay Area Air Quality. It took me a full 8 months to get the proper permits, and even then I was required to hire an engineer, and a law firm.

And do yourself yet one more favor, ignore the information you find from sourced that are not credible. Many people have spent uncounted sums of money accumulating Pentium Pros while under the belief that there is 1gram of gold per CPU. lb per lb, Pentium Pros are not the best CPUs to process, they just contain some of the highest amounts of gold per CPU. But if we are talking about weight/gold ration, they are certainly not the highest in gold content.

Scott

Originally Posted by unknownk

The CPU manufacturers would know how much gold they used per product line.

The people that know, do lot of research into production runs and their PM (Precious Metals) content.

When they start a new run of components they normally have a high Gold content because theres less chance of failed components or boards.
Failed parts when a item first comes out gives a product a bad name.
Then they get their quality control up and the first place they look afterwards for savings is Gold.

I have 4 identical facia boards from security alarms keypads.
The first one is a nice thick bright Gold plating, the second is a dullish Gold plating, the third is Gold plated with a lightish tone to it and the forth is Copper under varnish.....
Makes sense, its a 'Security product' saving a dollar is going to cost someone more than a few $$.
You want the keypad to work everytime you push the button, you don't want false alarms either, someones life is at risk.
But, well it works good now, quality controls good, where can we save money.....?
The last run, "Hey its almost all profit now, cheaper switches, cheaper parts, developments paid for itelf, trusted product... Gets get rid of the Gold..... But still charge the same. Our next models coming out in 3 months anyway".

Security and Medical products, and Telecom and the Space/Air industry have LOTS of Gold in them.
Lives are at stake.

With enough searching people can find out exactly how much Gold there is in a board for every production run the company made.
This is helpfull, it determines buying price of escrap and also they know which porocess it should go thru and how much of any PM they will get in the end.

I think the actual refiners seperate out the boards into sub catagorys and then individual production runs.
Like we might seperate out the HardDrive boards and sell them that way. They seperate out the different Hard|Drive boards into different models, and then seperate out the production runs of these models.
Then they process all of a certain run untill they get X amount of Gold etc, then do some other process, maybe combining the result of different processes.
Like stripping components, then washing the Silver\bismuth solder off, getting the Copper wires that were still soldered to the boards, then washing the Gold plate off the boards, then mincing the boards to a paste then extracting any Copper, then Gold out of the paste.

I still chuckle to myself when I remember one persons first go at 'getting the Gold out of computers'...
After about 4 days he had spent a fair amount of money and got a little Gold back and was still processing it in his garage.....
Then he noticed a weird rust speck on some metal fixtures in his garage, an the same rust speck on his 3 years old Saab car...
So he has a closer look at his car, finds more rust specks and "Uh oh"....
Touches the rust specs up and sells the car the next day, for a $4000 loss...
If he had not noticed and left it for a week, theres no way anyone would have brought that car, not a dealer anyway.....

= How to loose $5000 in less than a week by refining Gold yourself.