Another Mother Board Question

Did some searching on here, but did not find this topic specifically covered and hoped some of the buyers on here could answer it.

I know on processors/CPUs, there is generally a higher gold content in certain grades of chips, ie: 386 vs. pentium III, ect.

My question is, does this hold true to the mother boards as well. Do older 286/386 chipset boards yield higher returns than current boards? If so, does it pay to separate boards by chipset? Do buyers generally pay more if a shipment is all of a certain grade?

As far as I can tell, there is not a difference or reason to seperate. Good question though. Maybe someone can elaborate further.

All the buyer pricesheets I've seen so far show the pay as by the pound. I think the only way it would make a difference is if your sitting on 500-1000 lb of motherboards.

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

All the buyer pricesheets I've seen so far show the pay as by the pound. I think the only way it would make a difference is if your sitting on 500-1000 lb of motherboards.

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and that would be 500-1000lbs of each type of board. like 1000 lbs of one type of board all from the same type of machine

I saw one of the escrap buyers mention in a different thread that certain boards were definately worth more than others, for instance some of the old fingerboard cards had much gold plating than others, but they go through such a high volume of boards sent to the refiners a month and are of such a wide variety they can't really offer specificly higher rates for certain boards that would likely yield more gold. Like filthy and mechanic said though, if you had a huge amount of one specific type they could probably run asseys and figure out the value of that specific type and possibly pay a little more but you'd have to have a ton of those to make it worthwhile.

I would also wonder if the non-precious metal weight of the boards has changed over time... perhaps the worthless material was a higher percentage of the weight back then, which could even out the gold recovered per dollar spent on boards.

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Originally Posted by bjybjy

I saw one of the escrap buyers mention in a different thread that certain boards were definately worth more than others, for instance some of the old fingerboard cards had much gold plating than others, but they go through such a high volume of boards sent to the refiners a month and are of such a wide variety they can't really offer specificly higher rates for certain boards that would likely yield more gold. Like filthy and mechanic said though, if you had a huge amount of one specific type they could probably run asseys and figure out the value of that specific type and possibly pay a little more but you'd have to have a ton of those to make it worthwhile.

I would also wonder if the non-precious metal weight of the boards has changed over time... perhaps the worthless material was a higher percentage of the weight back then, which could even out the gold recovered per dollar spent on boards.

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I would take a guess on this and say yes. If you look at the older machines finger cards they had way more onboard finger IC chips. Them older boards have to have more PM content.

Sorry for the late reply...but had a long week (family was over for thanksgiving)

Now here is the deal on this. Yes they DO have more gold...BUT they have more plastic and metal on them than newer boards. So the added weight bumps there price down to the same as new boards that have less plastic and metal but less gold...but because of the lower over all weight..its about the same either way.

So when you get down to the math part...its the same board no matter how you look at it. It just worked out in the wash.

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Originally Posted by easyrecycle

Sorry for the late reply...but had a long week (family was over for thanksgiving)

Now here is the deal on this. Yes they DO have more gold...BUT they have more plastic and metal on them than newer boards. So the added weight bumps there price down to the same as new boards that have less plastic and metal but less gold...but because of the lower over all weight..its about the same either way.

So when you get down to the math part...its the same board no matter how you look at it. It just worked out in the wash.

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I understand what your saying with the more or less plastics and metals but correct me if I'm mistaken, isn't it all about the amount of gold retrieved on the board.

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Originally Posted by iScrap

I understand what your saying with the more or less plastics and metals but correct me if I'm mistaken, isn't it all about the amount of gold retrieved on the board.

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What he is saying is that if you take a pound of the old mother boards and a pound of the new ones the amount of gold recovered would be basically the same.

The reason for this is that the old motherboards have more heavy plastic and junk, so that even though they have more gold per board, the gold recovered per pound of weight is basically the same since the new boards have less gold but the weight of the junk is less as well.

The added weight of the "junk" is negligible. There is more gold in the older motherboards, however unless you have 5,000 lbs of it, there is no need to segregate it. In other words, if we buy it, there is no way for us to have the value reclaimed on 100 lbs of a 10,000 lbs load, so we don't truly realize the value of those boards.

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Originally Posted by Ewasted

The added weight of the "junk" is negligible. There is more gold in the older motherboards, however unless you have 5,000 lbs of it, there is no need to segregate it. In other words, if we buy it, there is no way for us to have the value reclaimed on 100 lbs of a 10,000 lbs load, so we don't truly realize the value of those boards.

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that has been my understanding with all commodity trade. unless you've got large volumes to negotiate with, you're basically at the discretion of your buyer. the upside to that is that you dont have to sell. you can always play the market for competitive pricing from another buyer. America is great. Canada is cool too.

That's also the problem with the scrap business, little to no loyalty.

agreed, but its not much different from other industries. loyalty is earned, esp with service over goods. that said, my loyalty is to CLR Solutions for ewaste. good dude. He explained to me what he knew of your "cashforcomputerscrap" business model. i respect your hustle.

the main point we discussed was in tune with this thread. the way to overcome loss of margins is to work with large volumes of each grade. dont cash in until its enough to be taken seriously. thats the only reason to stockpile, otherwise inventory does you no good as a scrapper (unless you're hoarding copper over the winter or waiting for a market rebound or something like that)

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Originally Posted by bjybjy

What he is saying is that if you take a pound of the old mother boards and a pound of the new ones the amount of gold recovered would be basically the same.

The reason for this is that the old motherboards have more heavy plastic and junk, so that even though they have more gold per board, the gold recovered per pound of weight is basically the same since the new boards have less gold but the weight of the junk is less as well.

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What he said is right.

But as ewasted said. There is alittle bit more over all for those boards. But its not worth sending it as its own lot when it can be refined with the newer type boards just as easy. The added profit of the old boards is not HUGE and most likely is not even a full penny from my findings.

There is just a good bit of waste items like plastic and metal on them that adds to the over all weight of the board that makes them inline with newer boards.

MDG, interesting site. At .1 g per chip that works out to about $6.00 of gold per chip. (If my math is correct.) Of course there is a lot of handling and processing to get to that $6.00.

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Originally Posted by Kris Kringle

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28911037/G...t-in-CPU-Chips


Click the X some interesting stuff on chips and boards.

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If you look at pentium pro chips. They have about 1g per chip.

It would take 30 chips to equal just over an ounce. 1.05821886 ounces to be exact

At eBay prices of about $30 per chip you looking at a total cost of $900 for just the chips.

Now add transportation, employee overhead, building overhead, power/water/licencing overhead and the amount the refinery will take and you can see how these chips can turn into very little profit.

We may see. OMG they are getting the chips for 1/2 the price of gold. But what may people dont see is after they pay the bills they are left with little to themselves.

sorry for the confusion, but you are correct. here in jersey, hustle is the accepted nomenclature for "hard working." that is exactly how i meant it. there is nothing dishonest about his business practice from what i can see. i am not the type to slander either. i know who ewasted is.

hope that clears up my position a bit. i love this forum and all of its contributing members