# Gold in CPUs.



## Aristo (Sep 20, 2007)

Is there more gold in a cpu as opposed to what is visible?.
For example , a pentium pro...theres a lot of visible gold , however , as shown in xray pics ( courtesy of Mr...ah ...I forgot . ) anyway...the question is since the gold wires are solid and the outer gold is plated , would it be reasonable to say that the interior gold is more than exterior?.


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## scavenger (Sep 20, 2007)

Hi Aristo, There is gold inside the cpu as well as more copper and other unidentifiable compounds. I've done a lot of crushed cpus and I would guess about 15-30 percent of the gold is inside. If u are going to process them I suggest crush them up as small as u can (hard work) than sieve of the fine dust as this is a real pain when in solution. Best to process the dust seperate. Treat it to HCL/Peroxide to get rid of any copper and wash it. If theres any gold in the dust it will dissolve easy in HCL/CL. Let it sit for day so the dust can settle and carefully filter off the solution. This dust will clog filters instantly. For the larger bits add HCL/peroxide and leave it for 3 or more days. U will be suprised at how much copper will be in the solution. Drain it off and wash the chips with water and HCL. Now soak in AR for 24 hours or longer to get the remaining gold.


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## lazersteve (Sep 22, 2007)

This post has sparked me to perform a test on some ceramic housings that I had laying around. Here are the 10 ceramic housings I'll do the testing on:

[img:743:824]http://www.goldrecovery.us/images/cpu_housings.jpg[/img]

and a closeup of the 486 housings without the legs:

[img:770:782]http://www.goldrecovery.us/images/housing_close.jpg[/img]

The legs and cores have been previously removed with AP.

In the upcoming days I'll make an effort to crush these housing as fine as possible and strip the fine gold wires from the powder using HCl-Cl. I'll weigh the resulting gold on my high accuracy (+/- 0.01 grams) scales and post the yield results here.

The weight of the ceramic housings before crushing is 194.0 grams.

I'll try to make a video of the process to post on my website if time permits.

Steve


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## lazersteve (Sep 23, 2007)

I made a trip to Lowes this morning and picked up the parts you see below for my pipe crusher for $38.00.







Here's a thread where a similar design was posted earlier:

Pipe Crusher

This is the first step to crushing the ceramic housings. The flange and sleeve are optional as well as one of the 1/2" pipe caps.

The required parts are as follows:

(1) 1 1/4" Galvanized pipe 30" w/ threaded ends
(2) 1 1/4" Pipe End Cap
(3) 1 1/4" to 3/4" Reducer coupling
(4) 1/2" Galvanized pipe 36" w/ threaded ends
(5) 1/2" pipe end cap (optionally 2 one per end)


Additionally, you may choose to fill the inner pipe with sand or molten lead, I find this is not necessary. 

These pipe crushers get the job done, but require lots of hard work.

Here's what the 10 CPU housing look like after 5 passes (30 minutes of time) thru the crusher:






The powder in the bottom of the bucket has already made it past the screen.

Steve


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## Aristo (Sep 27, 2007)

Steve , I hope u r doing ok on your "experiment".
I tried it my self and have found surprising results.
On one hand I broke the cpu with a hammer and on the other hand I crushed it to powder.
The results were identical.
I will try it again. I suspect the the ball mill that I used may have released iron into the cpu powder and maybe hindering gold recovery.....whatcha think??


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