# CPU Processing Input



## FullGoldCrown (Mar 22, 2022)

Hello. I wanted to post this thread to show my latest CPU refining experiment.

First, what is your opinion of the materials? I have attached some photos. How much yield should I expect from these CPUs? I have about 250 CPUs.





Here is my planned technique steps:

1) Remove heat sinks and capacitors with chisel. Save (tantalum) capacitors.
2) Place heat sinks with gold in A-P solution (1:1) 35% HCl:3% H2O2 with heat 140 to 160 F.
3) Hot ash fiber cores in furnance or rocket stove, crush.
4) Magnetic removal of ferrous particles
5) Place fiber core materials in A-P solution (1:1) 35% HCl:3% H2O2 with heat 140 to 180 F.
6) Rinse with distilled H20, gold pan.
7) Melt.


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## Yggdrasil (Mar 22, 2022)

FullGoldCrown said:


> Hello. I wanted to post this thread to show my latest CPU refining experiment.
> 
> First, what is your opinion of the materials? I have attached some photos. How much yield should I expect from these CPUs? I have about 250 CPUs.
> 
> ...


Point 2, these are higher end capacitors so they may be mlccs containing Pd, never seen Ta.
If you have used AP, no need for peroxide. If you have time no need for peroxide ever, just bubble air through it, or shake it hard a few times a day. Less risk of dissolving gold.
3-5 No need, just put whole in AP
6. Spray off gold foils, minute amount almost invisible.
7. Do not melt, dissolve with HCl-Cl/bleach/peroxide then precipitate with SMB.
8. Save for later refining.

These are low level, containing almost no gold at all, maybe not even inside the lid.
I would not process these, unless I have many.
Anyway if I had to do it, I'd start with a HCl cleanup after the lid is off. This will remove the Tin and drop off the MLCCs.
I'm not sure there even are bonding wires on these.

Edit to add:
There may be Indium solder inside the lids, could be nice to scrape off and save.


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## Yggdrasil (Mar 22, 2022)

Just a practical tidbit.
These processors are worth waay more as a functional processor than the PMs inside.
There's cents of PMs, maybe less.
But for educational exercise its ok.


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## eaglekeeper (Mar 22, 2022)

Check out Boardsort.com... They have a CPU buyback program that I have used many times. If you have any i3/i5/i7's they could be worth way more than the gold they contain. They do all the testing on the CPU's for free and...IF... they pass testing, they will send you a check. There is a price list of what they pay out on the home page (tested CPU prices).

Be careful while handling and wrapping the CPU's, those MLCC's and resistors are easily broken off.


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## GoIdman (Mar 23, 2022)

FullGoldCrown said:


> Hello. I wanted to post this thread to show my latest CPU refining experiment.
> 
> First, what is your opinion of the materials? I have attached some photos. How much yield should I expect from these CPUs? I have about 250 CPUs.
> 
> ...


Hi,

As @Yggdrasil has pointed out, for educational purpose to master techniques is fine, do not expect anything from these CPU-s since they have higher value as whole than for recovery, even the copper heatsink has higher value then all the PM`s inside.

When I buy CPU-s these are the ones that the seller just gives me by the pound for free (as a bonus) since it is literally worthless if you dont process TONS of it.

Too much work for very low output and profit. (I hate to work with these but i process these as well, but only when i have like 10-20 kg of boards without heatsink)

Be safe

Pete


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## Geo (Mar 23, 2022)

Remove heat sinks.
Leach in nitric acid until all gold foils comes loose. 
For pinned CPU's, same process just add 10 ml's sulfuric acid per liter.
Filter out gold foils.
Add a little HCl to the filtered solution to drop any little amount of silver.
Adjust PH up to 2 and cement out any left over Pd from the capacitors.
Move solution to waste disposal.


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## Geo (Mar 23, 2022)

The gold foils on the heat sinks can be recovered by a light boil in dilute HCl. The heat sinks are plated with tin. The HCl will remove the tin causing the foils to come loose. The heat sinks will look like copper now. Filter out the foils and process normally.


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## FullGoldCrown (Mar 24, 2022)

Geo said:


> The gold foils on the heat sinks can be recovered by a light boil in dilute HCl. The heat sinks are plated with tin. The HCl will remove the tin causing the foils to come loose. The heat sinks will look like copper now. Filter out the foils and process normally.


AND you can use the copper to precipitate PMs in your stock pot!


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## FullGoldCrown (Mar 24, 2022)

GoIdman said:


> Hi,
> 
> As @Yggdrasil has pointed out, for educational purpose to master techniques is fine, do not expect anything from these CPU-s since they have higher value as whole than for recovery, even the copper heatsink has higher value then all the PM`s inside.
> 
> ...


Pete, It seems everyone is talking about the gold on the outside of the fiber boards. What about getting to the PMs and gold wires on the inside? Do you have any advice on the best practice to extract them?


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## FullGoldCrown (Mar 24, 2022)

Yggdrasil said:


> Point 2, these are higher end capacitors so they may be mlccs containing Pd, never seen Ta.
> If you have used AP, no need for peroxide. If you have time no need for peroxide ever, just bubble air through it, or shake it hard a few times a day. Less risk of dissolving gold.
> 3-5 No need, just put whole in AP
> 6. Spray off gold foils, minute amount almost invisible.
> ...


Will this technique help extract the PMS on the inside of the fiber boards? Any techniques you would recommend?


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## Yggdrasil (Mar 24, 2022)

As far as I know. There are no PMs inside the boards. Not on these kind of CPUs at least.
Fiber CPUs are all, low to very low on PMs.
At least Intel and AMD.


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## Geo (Mar 24, 2022)

No value inside the green board portion. Copper traces is all.


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## Geo (Mar 24, 2022)

Complements of my friend Jack Hamilton.


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## Alondro (Mar 24, 2022)

Most of the gold is on the contacts on the bottom. OLDER CPUs have more gold inside, but the year on that one is '06. From what I'm told by many people, anything past 2004 has almost nothing, and you want to try to find COMMERCIAL CPUs, rather than consumer models. The ones made for industry are much higher quality


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## Alondro (Mar 24, 2022)

Yggdrasil said:


> Point 2, these are higher end capacitors so they may be mlccs containing Pd, never seen Ta.
> If you have used AP, no need for peroxide. If you have time no need for peroxide ever, just bubble air through it, or shake it hard a few times a day. Less risk of dissolving gold.
> 3-5 No need, just put whole in AP
> 6. Spray off gold foils, minute amount almost invisible.
> ...


It's an '06 Intel CPU. By then, I think Pd was eliminated from most MLCCs. A simple magnet test on a few will tell.


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## GoIdman (Mar 25, 2022)

FullGoldCrown said:


> Pete, It seems everyone is talking about the gold on the outside of the fiber boards. What about getting to the PMs and gold wires on the inside? Do you have any advice on the best practice to extract them?


Yes because there is nothing worth processing the fiber, it is all copper traces and no PM`s inside. Some of these CPU`s have a gold plating on the inside but not all CPU`s have that not even by the same manufacturer. 
The only thing worth this CPU is the copper heatsink, you can collect those, and sell it as copper, probably vill make more money then on recovered PM`s from these kind of CPU`s.


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## FullGoldCrown (Apr 5, 2022)

FullGoldCrown said:


> Will this technique help extract the PMS on the inside of the fiber boards? Any techniques you would recommend?


I removed the heat sinks placed them in 35% HCl w/ 3% H2O2 at 140 degrees F for a week then placed them in a beaker with a bubbler (outside under a porch awning--it gets indirect sunlight). Now I have a white precipitate--I have never seen this before. What am I looking at? SnCl2? CuCl2? Shoud I do anything different? My plan was to filter the white stuff and the gold foils together and dry then melt? Any thoughts? Thank you


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## Alondro (Apr 6, 2022)

FullGoldCrown said:


> I removed the heat sinks placed them in 35% HCl w/ 3% H2O2 at 140 degrees F for a week then placed them in a beaker with a bubbler (outside under a porch awning--it gets indirect sunlight). Now I have a white precipitate--I have never seen this before. What am I looking at? SnCl2? CuCl2? Shoud I do anything different? My plan was to filter the white stuff and the gold foils together and dry then melt? Any thoughts? Thank you


Tin chloride will eventually form a precipitate after a while due to hydrolysis and the formation of an insoluble basic salt. Heating it makes this reaction proceed more quickly. 

To remove tin, soak in warm HCl for no more than a day to ensure it won't begin precipitating.

You may also have formed Cu(I)Cl, which is also whitish and insoluble in water and forms sometimes due to only partial oxidation of the copper. Your solution could be saturated with that chloride and as the acid is used up, it may begin to fall out of solution. Dry some of the solid in regular air at room temp. If it turns greenish, it's copper(I) chloride, some of which has become copper metal and copper (II) chloride (a process called disproportionation). 

Copper (II) chloride is hygroscopic and will only crystalize as blue-green dihydrated crystals unless heated in very dry air to form the anhydrous salt, which is brown.


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## Liquidau (Aug 12, 2022)

Are Intel Xeon any better for gold content?


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## rickbb (Aug 12, 2022)

I pop the heat sinks off and throw the board in AP along with all my other plated boards, fingers. 250 cpu's won't make much gold at all.


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