IC Chips

Hi, I have been accumulating IC Chips for a while now, and am wondering what to do with them. I have set aside the ones that appear gold plated. I have a 5 gallon bucket of plain ones left over. I see that most e-waste buyers pay around $5-6/lb.

My question is if there is a variance in values for the plain IC Chips like there is with CPUs( 6/lb-130/lb), and I should go through the bucket and research the labels and ser. numbers, or if they are mostly the same and I should just sell them.

Thanks in advance,

The gold ones are the ones that have more value ahead of the plain ones. I have never heard of any difference in the plain ones. Are you removing the stickers off the gray ones to check for gold window chips?

((dumps bucket and gets another beer))

I think he will be back in a few there computerscrapper lol

The best thing you can do is determine what IC chips you have, I use a website octoparts.com and put in the numbers until I can ID the chips, then I search ebay for those chips. I sold a few hundred rare IC chips last year. I had not researched them, and just sold them to my normal buyers I would have lost at least $1,000.

neat website. Saved it and will have to try it out.

Yea, but after he's chiseled them off the boards the only value they have would be scrap value.

I wish someone would do a video on how you take off IC Chips. I'm scared I'm going to break something, lol

the question hasen't been answered, are all non gold/window chips worth the same as scrap.

I believe they are but I could be wrong.

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My question is if there is a variance in values for the plain IC Chips like there is with CPUs( 6/lb-130/lb), and I should go through the bucket and research the labels and ser. numbers, or if they are mostly the same and I should just sell them.

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After you get done sorting, cram as many as possible into a flat rate box or envelope and send to one of our buyers, Your profit will definitely outweigh the shipping.

In addition to CPU removal, it could, in some circumstances, be worthwhile to carefully desolder the three other central IC chips on a typical PC motherboard.
1) Northbridge
2) Southbridge
3) GPU (graphical processing unit)

for more details (see):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northbr...28computing%29
also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit

As stated earlier, before expending the time and energy (and establishing thorough ventilation) that careful desoldering requires, I would check the chip details/serial #s.

Certain Northbridge and Southbridge ICs have collectible value (certainly for older computers that some collectors attempt to reassemble).

Some GPUs have resale value if removed carefully and stored in a static free environment. Some older GPUs also have collectible value.

Here is an example of a collectible non-CPU motherboard IC chipset:

The original IC chipset for the Commodore Amiga computer (chips were named: Agnus, Denise, and Paula)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Amiga_chipset

Here is an example of someone attempting to sell 3 untested/functionality-unkown Agnus chips for $10. (I don't know if they'll sell, but it's interesting to see the attempt).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-3-COMMOD...item20c2037b96

Here is the Denise Chip selling for $30.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-AM...item3a662c9fce

Here is the Paula Chip selling for $3/chip ($30 for lot of 10)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-Paula-Chi...item256b042cd0

The NEAT chipset from early IBM PCs and clones is another relatively collectible set of IC chips.
If you type almost any of these chip names into Ebay, you'll get plenty of sales for much more than scrap value.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Enhanced_AT

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Originally Posted by Jeremiah

I wish someone would do a video on how you take off IC Chips. I'm scared I'm going to break something, lol

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Funny, I was on YouTube this morning looking up that very thing while having my "wake up" coffee. There's lots of vids on that subject there. I've read some threads on this site where folks talk about using a wood chisel to take them off, but was afraid I'd break them into ten pieces before I got the hang of it. Just about all the vids on YouTube show folks desoldering or using some kind of a heat gun. I think I like the heat gun method the best. Less chance of breaking the chips (or gouging my fingers) and less mess.

But I dunno, I'm still trying to learn myself.

I use a 4 1/2" angle grinder with a thin metal cut off blade and run it along were the legs aare soldered on the back of the board. Ware a dust mask if your going to try this and I only do this on low grade boards.

Desoldering a chip is very simple. You go to radio shack and get a desolder braid. Hold the braid on the pins with a soldering iron and it sucks up the solder. The chip can then just be lifted off the board. This is the ONLY was to remove a chip that you want to reuse. You can practice on capacitors once or twice till you get the hang of it. There are a bunch of vids on youtube that show the proper technique. If you are not going to reuse the chip/board I just use my torch to heat the back of the board and wiggle the chip.

Removing attached chips from boards downgrades the boards so it might be wise to research the value of the board first, before you go to cutting, heating and burning. Check with your board buyer to find out what is acceptable to them. :cool:

I am not a fan of removing chips but I understand why some do.
I think the easyest way is to use a heat gun. Just heat up board and part untill it pulls off.

I take my razor knife, and cut/scrape the solder from the backside. Then a flathead screwdriver easily wiggles out the chip. The fastest way, If only using them for scrap.

Jghilino, that's why I only remove the chips from low grade boards. Every buyer that I've dealt with will buy low grades with or without the chips and pay the same price.

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Originally Posted by Phantoms001

Desoldering a chip is very simple. You go to radio shack and get a desolder braid. Hold the braid on the pins with a soldering iron and it sucks up the solder.

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I have made soldering braid from the woven tin plated copper wire thats across the screen on a CRT Tv. Just melted some rosen flux into the braid & used it like that.

Last night I relised that a vacuum pump made from a old fridge motor may be used to suck the solder off too. Like the little hand held solder sucker pumps I see sometimes, but industrial.

IC chips are what make board attractive, not plated pins. Gold plated pins on motherboards do have only small amount of gold on them comparing to IC chips. Processing is not that complicated but require a lot of time and patience. I would gladly toll refine your IC chips or buy them outright but I am located overseas (Ireland) so all I can do is to advise you on values and help with processing.
Pat.

It's hard to nail down yields on ICs unless they are all the same.

Ceramic are worth more than the ones made of plastic, they are older and have more PMs and easier for home refiners to process so would bring more per lot.

Are they all ICs are are their proms/eproms also? Any with windows?

Some of the ones that look like they have little gold, actually have fairly good yields of Pd and sometimes Pt and Ag.

ICs increase in value the older they are either as collectable or because PMs were less expensive and they were not too worried about how much they applied in the manufacturing.

If you have ICs, mixed with other chips that look like ICs you may have more valuable chips than you realize. If it has a window, it's an eprom and worth more. CPUs often have gold caps, sometimes on both top and bottom and are of course worth even more in PMs.

I person I purchase material from on a fairly regular basis gave me a 5 gallon bucket of Eproms he had been saving for awhile. None of them had any gold plating to speak of. He asked me if I wanted them, and told me he would give them to me for nothing if I told him what I was able to recover from them. Needless to say I recovered a fair amount of Pd, and ended up giving him part of the return just because it was so good, I felt bad about not. All that glitters is not gold, sometimes it's some other PGM.

Scott

Correct.
Most of them do have Ag or Pd (or some AgPd alloy) inside in form of plating.
I would not say that ceramic eprom are more valuable from precious metal content-wise. They are heavier thus less of them in a kilogram comparing to plastic resin chips.
As you said, it is hard to get to correct value or yield for kilogram that is why I do call them like high, middle or low grade where high is 5g and more Au from kilogram and low is up to 1g Au from kilo.

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Originally Posted by patnor1011

Correct.
Most of them do have Ag or Pd (or some AgPd alloy) inside in form of plating.
I would not say that ceramic eprom are more valuable from precious metal content-wise. They are heavier thus less of them in a kilogram comparing to plastic resin chips.
As you said, it is hard to get to correct value or yield for kilogram that is why I do call them like high, middle or low grade where high is 5g and more Au from kilogram and low is up to 1g Au from kilo.

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Welcome to the SMF Pat, while cleaning up and organizing my shop came across two 20 liter pails of IC's that I pyrolyzed last year. The majority of the chips came from telcomm boards when I was removing them some broke open and you certainly could see visible gold.

Now I'm going to find a gold pan and get busy panning for gold, actually I'm going to build an E-Tower which takes less effort than panning. I suppose a blue bowl or a gold wheel would work just as well.

Yes, blue bowl might work perfectly for that. I still do use just pan and that get tiresome when processing larger quantities but as I work through that sight of gold bonding wires and dust accumulated on bottom is some reward. :)
Is that you Gill?

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Originally Posted by patnor1011

Yes, blue bowl might work perfectly for that. I still do use just pan and that get tiresome when processing larger quantities but as I work through that sight of gold bonding wires and dust accumulated on bottom is some reward. :)
Is that you Gill?

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Yes Pat it is I, yes it is as I stated in the begining on the gold forum mining e-waste chips and IC's is no different from mining the earth you have to liberate your precious metals in order to reclaim them.

In nature glaciers did the dirty work, gravity and running water forced the gold to accumulate, Man in his wisdom copies mother nature.

Nice to meet old friends. I mentioned that in GRF already that you were the first person who inspired me in my experiments, I still remember how I got to that "this may work I have to try it" feeling seeing your post and pictures.

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Originally Posted by patnor1011

Nice to meet old friends. I mentioned that in GRF already that you were the first person who inspired me in my experiments, I still remember how I got to that "this may work I have to try it" feeling seeing your post and pictures.

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patnor1011 here's a link to an E-Tower, half way down the page you can see it in action. This bit of kit would be easy to make but it is also sold under Quick Gold separator for $60.00. http://www.coloradoprospector.com/fo...?showtopic=470

The round screen is the most important part as it diffuseness the water stream advancing to the top of the column, with the right flow of water you can keep even the lightest particles in suspension using the siphon to remove the upper most.

I think that I would add a surfactant to keep the floaters to a minimum.

Below are some pictures of an E-Tower.

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/...m/etower2a.jpg

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/...m/etower2b.jpg

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/...m/etower2c.jpg

Wow friend, that is some cool unit right there. :cool: Can't say that I've seen anything like it in all of the prospecting research I've done on the web. Thanx 4 sharing that. A light just came on over here. ") lb