Computer parts Breakdown and identification

Ok here goes my attempt at sorting out all the different types of computer parts and what they are commonly called.

Lets start with the inside look of the whole computer.

As you can see there is alot going on in there.
Top left of picture is 2 dvd/cdrom drives and a 3.5 inch drive
Bottom left is the power supply
Bottom right is the motherboard and everything attached to it.
Top right is the hard drive.
On the motherboard
Top left in the black slots you will see a ram stick.
Middle left you will see a fan. Under that fan is the heatsink and CPU
Bottom right you will see 2 PCI/AGP/FINGER Cards sticking up vertical from the motherboard.

Now lets get a closer look at all the different parts out of the case.
Lets start with different motherboards.

This is a motherboard from a server.


These are motherboards from home computers.


You will notice they do look different. Most home computer motherboards will have square on them where the CPU plugs in where as a server board will usualy have slots card style CPU's or square mounted CPU's on riser cards.

Also home computer motherboards will usually have 2 to 4 ram slots. Servers have alot more. If you look at the server motherboard all the white slots on the left side are for ram. This server board has room for 18 sticks of ram. That would be about a full pound if they were all full.



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In this picture you can see the different types of RAM chips.
Top to bottom are
Laptop/Printer style ram
Oldschool 386/486 EDO RAM Silver or Gold Fingered
Newer style ddr/ddr2/ddr3 RAM
Server Ram
Here is a picture of what most people call rambus. You will notice its just like a regualr RAM chip just cased in metal. Some of these are very easly removed. They use to sell heatsinks you could slip over your ram.

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

Ok now on to diferent types of CPU's

This picture shows the 3 different stages of a SLOT Processors. when selling these they have to be removed from the plastic case like the one on the bottom.


This picture is of metal toped green fiber CPU's Commonly found in Pentium 4 systems, amd systems, and some mac's


This picutre is of pentium and AMD green and brown fiber chips without metal tops. these are usualy pentium 2 and 3 and early amd series.


This picture is of ceramic pentium and amd chips. Usualy these are pentium 1 chips notice no gold tops.


Here is a pic of a golt top pentium chip.


This is a pentium pro gold top chip. From what ive found out this is probable the heavist chip of them all and has the most gold content per chip of them all. Ive seen these sell for 20 to 30 bucks or more each on ebay.


This is a 486 chip. The 386 chip looks just like it. These are the best chips by the pound as far as gold recovery goes. DONT throw these in with your ceramic chips they are worth about 3 times as much right now.


This is the black fiber chips. They look and feel like plastic.


These are PCI/AGP/FINGERBOARDS These plug into the motherboard and are usualy what you see when looking at the back of a computer. They have the gold finger looking things running down one side of the card.


These are 3.5 inch floppy drives. Most people will just break off the gold connector you see in the middle drive in the picture and throw it in with there gold conector ends.

Very well done sir. mcw

This is a 5.25 inch floppy drive. I would put these on ebay and sell them instead of scrapping them. But if you want to scrap them you can take the board off of these just like you would a cd/dvd drive.


This is a 3.5/5.25 combo floppy drive. DO NOT SCRAP THESE. Sell them on ebay. I just sold this one for $20 with free shipping on ebay untested. So after shipipng and fees I still made about $12.

OK these next three pics show me taking apart acd/dvd rom drive just to get the board out. It took me a whole minute to do it and take all 3 pics. These boards fetch motherboard price if im not mistakin. Back panel was held on by 4 screws and then lifts right off. Then board just held in by plastic clamps and it to lifts right out. If you get DVDRW drives dont scrap them either. I sell them for $15 on ebay and $20 for the lightscribe ones.





This is a pic of all diferent kinds of EPROMS/IC CHIPS/FLATBACKS. They all sell for same price.


This is called ribbon cable. Cut the black parts off this is where all the gold plated pins are. When cut from copper wires throw them in a bucket with your connector ends from other cables like monitor and printer cables. Shown below.



This is power supply. Personaly I just cut the wires off and throw the rest in my shred. Some yards will pay low copper breakage for them too. All depends on yard. Some yards even have there own prices for them.


These are 3.5 inch hard drives. There are older 5.25 inch hard drives and 2.5 inch you will find in laptops. They pretty much all look the same. Pull the baords off and sell them seperate. They usualy go for 2 times the motherboard rate or better depending on buyer. the back plate is usualy Stainless and the rest of the drive body is cast alluminum. The boards are usualy only held on with a couple screws and come off real easy.

Well thats it I hope this helps you all and if I missed anything let me know and ill add it to this post with an edit.

Originally Posted by recyclerscrap

THank you that is a very good post I am trying to learn how to best scrap recycle Computers E waste and Other various recyclables

Thank you for your kind words. Im also a buyer here on the forum so feel free to PM with any questions you may have and ill be glad to answer them if I can.

The short answer is no you don't remove all the gold, the gold bits make the boards have the value they have.

There's a lot more to it than that but you can do some more reading in other threads to help your knowledge. For now I suggest you hold onto your boards until you know more and can judge what is best for your business. Mike.

Originally Posted by nat0420

I want to know how to tell what those different little metals are on the boards. I want to start collecting the palladium and platinum. if u could help

Nope cant help you there sorry. I dont know what parts are made of what I just know what they are. Might want to try gold refining forum for those types of answers.

Originally Posted by Chuckvanstinkle

i was wondering if anyone was familiar with 5 pin solid state protectors. i have a garbage can full of used one and 4/5 of the pins/plugs are gold. i opened one up and the gold plug runs through the entire body of the plastic portion. so if anyone has any information regarding scrapping one of these id appreciate. oh yea I'm new here. first post. whoop.whoop.

I'm not familiar with them.

Saving this spot for updates since there is a 10 picture max per post.

Great info and nice stock pile there PTS.