Intel Celeron P1053 CPU Gold Recovery

I have about 350 Intel Celeron P1053 CPU's FC LGA 1366 used but in perfect condition and have been tested good. However, they are Celerons from about 2013 so I thought they might be worth more as scrap.


They are the newer socket 1366 without pins, just bumps. I was HOPING they would be worth a few dollars each for gold recovery but I can not find any information on recovering gold from 'modern' Intel CPU's.


I can't post links but here is a photo voteleela.com/downloads/cel1366.jpg

Your comments would be appreciated.

Check out the gold refining forum

Thanks but you don't mention that chip or even that type of chip in your post.

Do you know what the best use for these Intel CPU's are and how much they might be worth?

Thanks

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Originally Posted by mikeinreco

Check out the gold refining forum

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This

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Originally Posted by calgarytech

Thanks but you don't mention that chip or even that type of chip in your post.

Do you know what the best use for these Intel CPU's are and how much they might be worth?

Thanks

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I see some of them listed for like $10 on eBay... So not worth a whole lot as reusable cpus. But go on eBay an search for cpu lots or ram lots. I've seen some pull in a ton of money. Sometimes even more than scrap value.

Thanks for the eBay suggestion. I did look at a number of auction sites including eBay but found people trying to sell 1 or 2 units and I want to unload the batch. I also checked what actually sold and found that they are not selling, which makes sense because Celerons are the bottom of the barrel so no one will upgrade to a 2013 Celeron.

Again, does anyone know what that gold value is on these modern chips?

It's not a lot. Maximum around $5/lb.

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Originally Posted by calgarytech

Thanks for the eBay suggestion. I did look at a number of auction sites including eBay but found people trying to sell 1 or 2 units and I want to unload the batch. I also checked what actually sold and found that they are not selling, which makes sense because Celerons are the bottom of the barrel so no one will upgrade to a 2013 Celeron.

Again, does anyone know what that gold value is on these modern chips?

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Sold to a buyer on here, around $3-5/lb

In this link theres some ( inaccurate ) info of CPU & their Gold content &value OzCopper | CPU Gold Content

In this link, they quote that link & add some info about its inaccuracys. Thats GRF Goldrefingingforum.com https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3...ic.php?t=15656 Dont go there & ask for the magic formula on "how to get the Gold out". Theres isn't one.

Id say that list is out by a 10~20% excess. But sorta accurate that it takes 20~30 pinless cpu to make a gram of Gold, I would have said 80~100 cpu. 0.01~0.015gms per CPU.
Although I did read somewhere that under the Copper heatsink lid, on about 10% of them, theres a splash of Gold used as a heat transfer from the die to the lid. You dont find out untill the lids taken off. The rest just use a splash of Silver.
Its sorta similiar to the 'windowed chips', you can see the background under the die & its either Silvery or a dirty Gold colour.
With the pinless CPU, & small pinned CPU, sometimes, with postage costs, its cheaper to knock the Copper heatsink off & sell it'No heatsink's' since you can sell the heatsink as Copper dom locally. Its just that with the 1 in 10 Gold splash, they are missing out. Yah gotta do your own math, maybe just include the Gold splash heatsinks in with the CPU.

A K5 'triple Gold CPU' is supposed to be 0.4+gms per CPU, but I doubt its 0.5gms

Fanastic info. Thanks

A youtube video specifically about Gold refining from the K5 CPU ended up with a return of just 0.25 grams of Gold per CPU.
Now prefessionals will get a better return, so the actual content is likely to be 0.3 ~0.35 gms per K5 CPU.
So I'd roughly say the actual returns are about 60 ~66% of what the site quotes.

We recorded a video of a manual disassembly of one of the chips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwx6tY1-JKk

Does this new information add any information that effects the value of these Intel CPU's for recycling.

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Originally Posted by calgarytech

We recorded a video of a manual disassembly of one of the chips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwx6tY1-JKk

Does this new information add any information that effects the value of these Intel CPU's for recycling.

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I think these have a pretty standard price across the industry.....if you feel they are worth more try your hand at gold recovery over at the gold refining forum

Another youtuber with gold fever.....

Near the end of the video OP puts a little message in top right corner saying he expects to get much more than $4-$5 per pound.........As mentioned before he says he has approx 350 of these units..........Honestly that doesn't even move the meter in the world of recycling.........Now if he said he has 350,000 of these units I would say he would get someones's attention

https://www.monex.com/prods/gold_chart.html

Gold has gone up but I think it has peaked.......It never reached 1700/oz......Hopefully it holds where it is.........Consistency is better than massive fluctuations

I just hope the OP keeps us updated.

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Originally Posted by jimicrk

I just hope the OP keeps us updated.

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We love to see results.....there are so many threads that gotstarted and we never found out what actually happened to the items

I understand that 350 does not 'move the needle', the point I was making was don't both to try and recycle 50 chips.

My question relating to the video really had to do with the amount of silver that under the cap. I was quite surprised. Obviously silver is worth much less than gold, but I thought it was worth asking if this will affect the price. Perhaps that amount of silver is either irrelevant or normal, but it looked like alot to me.

Thoughts?

For a private refiner over at the gold refining forum it might make a difference that is why I have tried to point you in that direction.....not sure if you are on that forum as I haven't checked it in a while.....the buyers here rely on bulk and would be happy to add your chips to their recycling stream....some of them will negotiate a little on price and you make get an extra .25 to .50/lb but not based on your video just to get you to move the material so they can move their material faster....hope this helps and good luck

Hey thanks for that Calgarytech, as soon as you mentioned the 'Gold under the cap' i knew it was something i had mentioned before.
And the SMF reference with my ( well not my ) pic in it. Lol. Im famous now.

I had a look at my CPU, theres a bit over 200 of those capped pinless & another 200 pinned CPU of that size.
I took 5 pinless ones & put them cap down on the flat top stove & in less than a minute they were popping & smoking & i took them off, scraped the ceramic capacitors off the underside since their solder had melted anyway.
Then used a knife to quite easyly pop the Copper heatsink cap off.
3 of them had the Gold plated underside with a 7/8 inch square of Gold plated to it with that Silvery metal thats also stuck to the CPU die itself, which is still on the fibre circuitboard.

That silvery solder, i dunno what it is actually, but its soft, very very soft, my thumbnail will easly score marks into it. I have never seen such a soft metal before.

The 5 CPU i picked were completely random, so i expect its ratio of Gold plated underside is 60%, but that could easly change.
The others (2) just had the grey plasticy heatsink paste you often see on normal chips, some stuck to the underside of the cap, and a very shiney top to the actual CPU die.

I chipped the dies off 3 of the fibre bases & found the 8nteresting side has a layer 9f solder or such over it, so i put the dies into some HCL acid to dissolve it off.
I want to get the very pretty CPU to use for escrap jewellery. I have trued normal chips & the dies size & looks & colour vary a lot & finding nice CPU dies is quite random along with getting them off cleanly and clean.

The 'gold paint splash' reference i made was from the older eproms, under those chips, you can see the chip die thru its plastic window, you can see if its got the 'gold splash' of paint under it, or if its just Silver paint ( actual Gold & actual Silver in the paint splash )
They also had Gold or Silver wires connected to the chip die.
'Gold & Gold' ( splash & wires ) are worth more obviously.

It takes a LOT of Silver to make up anything of value, i picked the Silver wires off a 2 pint icecream container of Sanken audio anps ( the large flat black resin capped, Aluminium heatsink backed Audio power amp in most car stereos & midrange home audio amps.
A hour later i had something like 77 cents worth of Silver wire.
I was quite proud to post my results & findings, but hadnt got around to doing the math of it untill somebody else did & posted it. LoLz @ me.
They still get saved up & picked open & the Silver wires picked out & added to the Silver electrical contacts i have. They are there anyway, its a habit of getting every tiny bit.

The pinless CPU? Id still be selling mine to a escrap buyer. I trued the Gold recovery thing & it took lots of time, chemicals that are not cheap here, though i got the HCL acid for free.

The time, and the fact i only got thru the first stage of recovery of Gold, theres many other steps, more & more expensive chemicals & more different setups, electroplating, molds, gas torches etc etc.
Its simply easier to sell it to a escrap buyer. And much much safer.
2 of the Gold plated underside heatsink chips were..
Intel '04
346 sl811d malay
3.06ghz/256/533/04a
Q607a230

&
Intel '05 e6550
Intel core duo
Sla9x costarica
2.53ghz/4m/1333/06
3809 a20

I dont know much if anything about models of CPU & i do worry that im ruining a perfectly good desirable CPU.
Though i doubt it, there would not be a chip later than 2015, i doubt if theres any or many past 2008

Last night i stripped one of those CPU down. I honestly think that that soft 'silvery metal' is Lead solder, though its very soft.
It melts like lead solder does ( maybe its 'Tin' solder ) drops & splatters like solder does, in a cigarette lighters flame.
But that Gold square is Gold, plating.

The CPU chip itself, i trued to clean it down to expose its working face & just couldnt, theres solder across its face & after picking the fibre apart i figure out that the CPU has no Gold wires at all.

Its got Copper tracks with the underside contacts Gold plated, each contact has a 'thru hole' that rises vertical thru many layers of fibreglass.
Each layer of fibreglass has a surface Copper tracking that takes the tracking from the contacts vertical thru hole upwards, some of those thru holes stop & theres a surface Copper tracking on that layer of fibre that goes towards the centre of that fibre square, where it meets a very small thru hole, which takes the track upwards vertically again untill it meets the direct underside ( the working face ) of the CPU & its then soldered directly to the CPU.
All thru holes are Copper plated inside, and then Gold plated over the Copper, maybe the flat surface Copper tracks are Gold plated too.

Thus explains the abnormally low Gold content in those CPU. Its just the thicker Gold plated contacts, the Gold plating on the inside walls of the thru holes, & a bit more Gold plating on surfaces & the upper surface where its soldered to the contacts on the CPU.

No Gold wires at all. Minimum Gold plating.

Im going to contact the CPU buyer in Perth Australia & see what he thinks about buying my CPU now.

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Originally Posted by eesakiwi

Last night i stripped one of those CPU down. I honestly think that that soft 'silvery metal' is Lead solder, though its very soft.
It melts like lead solder does ( maybe its 'Tin' solder ) drops & splatters like solder does, in a cigarette lighters flame.

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Is it possible that the soft metal is Indium? I know it is used in some CPU's.

It could be Indium, its abnormally soft, like i can quite easly score it with my thumbnall & theres no way i can do that to solder.
Even Silvers too hard to do that too, but i did wonder if its a high Silver solder, dunno yet.

I got a email back from the guy in Aussie who buys escrap. It would cost too much to send the CPU with the Copper heatsinks on them to Aussie, from NewZealand.
He says that the Gold amount on those Copper caps is quite low & that the value 8n them is mostly the actual Copper value, the CPU itself does add some value, but on a typical Gold fingered contact PCB level of value.
I guess when they melt down & refine the Copper that thats when they get the Gold off it. Thats standard practise, thats when they get the other metals back from the electroplating refining sludge, they will get the Silver & such back from the Silver solders left on Copper piping & what else that they get off slightly dirty Copper.

So im only going to send him the Purple Ceramics CPU, but i will work out postage to see what the $ return is on the Green fibre CPU if i send them as well.

If its anything, its worth it, I still end up with a Kg of Copper Domestic heatsinks though ( inc Gold, LoL )

He didnt mention anything about the rest of my escrap. I guess its not worth it.
Coronas just arrived in NZ, mostly by airplane on its host already, but theres a few cases locally already, scarey. Given that 3 weeks ago was the first case, fotp, now in the last 7 days its jumped from 3 to 20, mostly fotp.
Supermarkets were packed with people today but plently of stock, except for what I wanted, which was Methylated spirits... To distill down to clean ethanol. I have been using it as a cleaner for the last 6 months.

Oh, and those CPU, i heated them up in the stove to remove the cap. A couple or 3 got too hot & boy does it stink!!! Its going to take a week or more to get rid of most of the smell.
So if doing it again, do it outside, with a solid hotplate, no flames or it burns.

You would have to dig through the archives but TJ mentioned something about baking the cpu's in the oven awhile back.

Maybe a heat gun would work outside ?

A hot sand pcb board heater would probably work & give you just the right temperature control.

Our grocery store has been doing a phenomenal business this past week. We're about to offer curbside pick up & expand home delivery for those who aren't feeling well. A lot of folks have dug out their credit cards so that they can buy in bulk. That way they can stay home & self isolate till this thing blows over.

You can pop the caps of very easy with a flat screwdriver and a hammer

I heated the Aluminium caps on the purple ceramics CPU ( K6 ?) to get them off & that worked well. It did remove the actual CPU die ( chip ) off the ceramic since to was stuck to the Aluminium cap.
But thats ok, i keep any bare chips i can get anyway.

But boy did that hot/burning fibreglass stink.
I do know that since i did something similar years ago, ever since then if i get too dehydrated i can smell it in my sweat.
It smells toxic to me, even if I cant smell it properly, if im standing in one spot for a bit, leave that spot & return back there, i can smell it badly.

So that heating thing is definately only being done outside on a windyish day.
I sorta counted out that the CPU ( except for the ceramics )would pretty much pay for the postage to get them to Brisbane Australia.. Maybe a bit more to help offset the ceramics postage cost.
Its not going to make me rich I tell you.

BTSP? I will 'scope out the prices of the K5 CPU online, they are attractive, also the others.

Thanks everyone. Your details have been quite useful.

I expect my last batch (get me to about 400 chips) next week and then I will unload the whole load. :)

Stay safe.