# Gold content of Pentium Pros



## skyline27 (Nov 6, 2007)

Does anyone have a ballpark figure for gold content in Pentium Pros?
Is there a list of yields for other cpu's in the forum?


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## Noxx (Nov 6, 2007)

Hello Skyline,
Making a list with all the CPUs would take too long.
But if someone makes a list with common CPUs, I think everyone would be interested.

Here is what I know:
486 CPUs has 3$ worth of gold
Pentiums Pro has 7$ worth of gold.


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## Joe (Nov 7, 2007)

I measured about .33 grams of gold per Pentium Pro including the fingers, the heat sink, and circuitry under the cover plate. Supposedly there is more if the ceramic is pulverized. The Pros also contain some silver. However, I'm not much of a skilled refiner. Judging by the price they bring on Flee-Bay, others are getting a better return.
I figured around 15-20 AMD ceramics to make a gram. It takes an awful lot of PII processors to make a gram.


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## meng2k7 (Nov 8, 2007)

Noxx said:


> Hello Skyline,
> Making a list with all the CPUs would take too long.
> But if someone makes a list with common CPUs, I think everyone would be interested.
> 
> ...



Hi Sir!

very interesting one sir, i have here approximately 30kgs, i dont know the easy way to process it, the only process i know is for goldfingers.

is this based on per piece or per kilogram? how do you get the goldwire inside? 

thank you very much Sir!


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## aflacglobal (Nov 8, 2007)

is your calculation based on per piece or per kilogram? how do you get the goldwire inside?  Each one / per unit. 
To get to the wire you have to crush the chips. They need to be pretty fine to allow the acid to penetrate. Some people just throw them in acid and allow them to eat the pins and what wire it can out. Then rinse them and crush them for the rest that might be left.

What is the best way of crushing ? well the jury is kind of still out on that one.
Steve has some good info on his site i think about it.


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## skyline27 (Nov 8, 2007)

I am also interested in the gold content of ceramic Pentium 1 chips. Does anyone have data on that?


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## Noxx (Nov 8, 2007)

I don't really know....
Maybe about 1$ each... That's what I pay.


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## NobleMetalWorks (Mar 26, 2012)

There is .33 grams per CPU


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## Anonymous (Mar 26, 2012)

SBrown said:


> I know this is an old post, and yeah, I'm bumping it but only because I just completed a run of Pentium Pro's.


I won't be too hard on you,because I understand that you are pretty new,but we have seveal hundred posts that contain "pentium pro".I believe this thread was the first one we ever had concerning them.


SBrown said:


> According to Intel, there is suppose to be .9 grams of gold per Pentium Pro.


Sounds more like,you have been looking at a certain list of yields.If this is true,you need to throw that away.


SBrown said:


> So out of the 28 CPU's I was able to get .796 grams out of each.


I have processed *THOUSANDS* of pentium pros and have never had a yield even close to this,and yes that includes the gold in the substrate.I have a mill,and sodium thiosulfate,so I doubt very highly that there was _any_ gold left behind.


SBrown said:


> (yeah, I realize you never can reclaim ALL the gold)


Yes,you most certainly can.


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## lazersteve (Mar 26, 2012)

SBrown said:


> ...According to Intel, there is suppose to be .9 grams of gold per Pentium Pro. Just so we are straight on which Pentium Pro I am talking about, these are the ones with the large gold cap on top, not the ones that are black without the gold cover.



Please provide a current reference to this documentation from Intel as I have not been able to locate it on their website.

Steve


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## kuma (Mar 26, 2012)

Hello all , how are tricks?
I hope all is well!


lazersteve said:


> SBrown said:
> 
> 
> > ...According to Intel, there is suppose to be .9 grams of gold per Pentium Pro.
> ...


I've also tried to find this information , but to no avail.
I suspect that many others have also tried to find this seemingly detailed info , but have failed.
If this is genuine information from Intel , themselves , please provide a link to verify it chief!
All the best for now , and kind regards ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## NobleMetalWorks (Mar 27, 2012)

Edited:

When I posted this, the information I had was incorrect, I have since processed many PPs and found .33 to be the average.

Scott


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## Harold_V (Mar 27, 2012)

SBrown said:


> and hollow titanium balls just over an inch.


What, no marshmallows?
What do you expect a titanium ball to do that isn't hollow, let alone one that is? Do you not understand that a ball mill is akin to a hammer and anvil, and that the weight of the ball determines the work it will do? 
(Said another way, lose the titanium balls, and get something hard and heavy. Steel balls come to mind.)

Harold


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## butcher (Mar 27, 2012)

Couple of things comes to my mind after reading your post.

Why are you mixing ferrous sulfate and sodium metabisulfite that makes no sense to me?
I believe from reading your process you are also recovering the copper or other base metals in your first buttons, what color is the aqua regia in the second refining?

Consider removing base metals.

"Pentium Pro's used 22k gold"
I would think it is pure gold they use.

"SMB will only react if there is free nitric acid available is my understanding, so when you no longer get the brown rusty NOx off gas, I feel that there is still AU in solution that didn't drop because the SMB was burning Nitric Acid. "

My understanding is sodium metabisulfite works if there is NO free nitric acid in solution, it will NOT work to precipitate gold as long as there is free nitric in solution.
And if you do have free nitric in solution you will see the Brown NOx fumes you describe when adding sodium metabisulfite, as nitric uses up the SMB NOx fumes escape, the SMB will not work until you overcome the free nitric, so your taking a chance of making more salts from the excess SMB your adding to solution, these salts from the sodium nitrate you used may form more salts of base metals, added to the first refined gold.

It is my understand stannous chloride is used to test for gold, not what fumes are emitted from adding SMB to solutions, or what I feel as "SMB burns acid".

Also adding soda ash to your melt you are reducing base metals that may normally oxidize in the melt, to elemental metals mixed in with your gold reduced metals.

"I thought that the HCL after being melted, may be able to force the other base metals into HCL."

HCl after the melt (with gold in this metal form) will not "force out base metals from the button"

I am not trying to be critical, but I think you need to understand a few more things.


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## lazersteve (Mar 27, 2012)

SBrown,

I agree that your button is most certainly very contaminated. Here are my reasons:

1. You dissolved everything with AR and stated various dark colors of 'mud' were collected and combined. These muds can contain copper, tungsten, gold, silver, and other miscellaneous compounds. These compounds do not rinse out with water.

2. You make no mention of the bright yellow powder that forms when the tungsten heat spreader is being attacked. The formation of this compound is a tell tale sign that all of the copper has been removed from the heat spreader. If copper remains in the heat spreader you will have gold cemented on that copper within the tungsten substrate. 

3. You did not ice your AR after dissolving the gold. Icing helps remove traces of silver and other insoluble chlorides that can remain after dissolution.

4. You used several precipitants that are not 100% selective for gold so copper, at a minimum, is a definite contaminate.

5. You did not do a second refining before melting. I find it odd that you meticulously went through all of the initial steps to recover your gold, but did not 'finish the job' by refining it a second time when you had the powders at your fingertips. As Butcher suggested, soaking a button in HCl will not help the purity of a button to any noticeable degree.

For these reasons I feel you may report back and find that your yields of refined gold are not what you expected.

I feel that one of the best first steps in refining any ceramic cpu that has a gold plated top is to treat the cpu in 35% nitric acid until the heat spreader has decayed to a yellow powder and the cpu die falls out or comes loose. This yellow powder is a tungsten compound that is highly soluble in 50%+ sodium hydroxide solution.

Once the tungsten and base metals are removed collect the foils and process with AR.

Please take my comments in the spirit that I offer them: as helpful insight to where your numbers may be off.

I look forward to reading the scribd document on Intel cpus when you find it.

Steve


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## NobleMetalWorks (Mar 29, 2012)

Corrected above

Scott


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## AztekShine (Mar 29, 2012)

Here's the scribid PDF 

http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/28911037#doc


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## Barren Realms 007 (Mar 30, 2012)

AztekShine said:


> Here's the scribid PDF
> 
> http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/28911037#doc



The yields in that document are not correct.


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## glondor (Mar 30, 2012)

Hey all. Not disputing anything here but just adding a comment. RE: yield quoted by sbrown. You state that an intel source quoted .9 g of 22k gold. Since 22k is 91.7% gold your .9g is really .825 g.


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## necromancer (May 17, 2012)

why does this thred go from:

November 8th, 2007, 2:48 pm
to
March 26th, 2012, 8:00 am

that 5 years from one post to the next ???


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## glondor (May 18, 2012)

New people have an interest in old topics.


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## Palladium (May 18, 2012)

necromancer said:


> that 5 years from one post to the next ???



Yep!


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## goldsilverpro (May 18, 2012)

There was lots of good stuff posted in the early days. Except for stuff like auctions, nothing on here is timely. I like seeing the old stuff dredged up. Shows people are searching.


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## Anonymous (May 18, 2012)

goldsilverpro said:


> I like seeing the old stuff dredged up. Shows people are searching.


Thumbsup.


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## ΩPhoenix (May 18, 2012)

Noxx said:


> Hello Skyline,
> Making a list with all the CPUs would take too long.
> But if someone makes a list with common CPUs, I think everyone would be interested.
> 
> ...



Thank you Noxx,

That is the figure that I came up with also for the 486's.
I didn't know that the Pentium Pro's were running $7 though. 

Great information to know. 

Steve


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## glondor (May 18, 2012)

I believe those are very old numbers.


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## Anonymous (May 18, 2012)

I think what Glondor means is, those are *very,very* old numbers,and Canadian dollars at _that_ time.
THe date on that post was late 2007.The price of gold then was hovering in the neighborhood of $800(U.S.)/ozT


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## goldenye (May 31, 2012)

can you give me this guys contact info? my email is [email protected]

There were two places that I found the information. I bookmark websites in the toolbar of Firefox, so I have hundreds to look through to find the same site, but it was a PDF file, I thought I had found on Scribd, but I can't find it again, yet. When I do, I will post it. When I first started learning about recovering gold, I scoured the internet for information about yields and availability of scrap. I thought I could easily make a fortune by finding a good cheap source, that is impossible. I ran across a guy on Alibaba that sells e-scrap, that's all he does. He is selling 1lb of ceramic CPU's for $107 usd per lb, he has over 800 lbs. All this guy is doing now is selling e-scrap, he no longer refines e-scrap, but did for a long time. He told me that when he was really actively recovering PM from E-Scrap, he contacted Intel and got the real numbers for the amount of gold contained in each CPU. According to him, someone at Intel gave him the information, it was .9 grams per CPU. However, he also told me that there is some variance dependent upon which variation of the CPU you are recovering from, and even where it was produced. I don't want to post his number in the forum, but I would be more than happy to give up his information to someone who would call, and ask about the ceramic CPU scrap and then ask about Pentium Pro's and how much gold content they have.




SBrown said:


> There were two places that I found the information. I bookmark websites in the toolbar of Firefox, so I have hundreds to look through to find the same site, but it was a PDF file, I thought I had found on Scribd, but I can't find it again, yet. When I do, I will post it. When I first started learning about recovering gold, I scoured the internet for information about yields and availability of scrap. I thought I could easily make a fortune by finding a good cheap source, that is impossible. I ran across a guy on Alibaba that sells e-scrap, that's all he does. He is selling 1lb of ceramic CPU's for $107 usd per lb, he has over 800 lbs. All this guy is doing now is selling e-scrap, he no longer refines e-scrap, but did for a long time. He told me that when he was really actively recovering PM from E-Scrap, he contacted Intel and got the real numbers for the amount of gold contained in each CPU. According to him, someone at Intel gave him the information, it was .9 grams per CPU. However, he also told me that there is some variance dependent upon which variation of the CPU you are recovering from, and even where it was produced. I don't want to post his number in the forum, but I would be more than happy to give up his information to someone who would call, and ask about the ceramic CPU scrap and then ask about Pentium Pro's and how much gold content they have.
> 
> In the meantime, let me clarify what I have stated already.
> 
> ...


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## pugle1 (Oct 16, 2012)

goldsilverpro said:


> There was lots of good stuff posted in the early days. Except for stuff like auctions, nothing on here is timely. I like seeing the old stuff dredged up. Shows people are searching.



I'm new, so I need the old stuff


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## Alentia (Jan 30, 2013)

I have recovered fully from 4 Pentium Pros (512K Cache) 2.1gr of gold exactly (cleaned and washed).

It is 0.525gr per CPU.

It seems 256K Cache CPUs may have bit more gold. Will post results when completed.


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## Alentia (Feb 3, 2013)

Somewhat interesting... 256K Cache P-Pro CPU yielded 0.25gr per CPU with SMB.

It could be that I still have gold in the solution. Dropped copper wire there to see if some more will be cemented.


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## lazersteve (Feb 3, 2013)

Did the tungsten heat spreaders separate from the ceramic housing in both test batches?

Or did you crush everything?

Steve


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## Alentia (Feb 4, 2013)

Yes and Yes, I crashed it and they did separate. As a matter of fact I have had 90% of it (bigger pieces) removed before AR treatment, so I do not waste time and acids for it dissolve.

Now I can confirm:

1. Pentium Pro 512K Cache - 0.525 gram of gold per CPU
2. Pentium Pro 256K Cache - 0.250 gram of gold per CPU
3. Pentium Pro 1Mb Cache - X.XXX gram - I do not have it to test.

The above may explain all those different results people getting per CPU. It may as well explain why eBay guide claiming 1gr of gold in CPU as it theoretically could be the case for 1Mb Cache chips, which are somewhat rare.


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## necromancer (Feb 4, 2013)

> Pentium Pro 1Mb Cache



is there such a thing ??


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## rucito (Feb 4, 2013)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_Pro_microprocessors


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## Alentia (Feb 10, 2013)

More CPU recovery data approximate as I have processed them all together:


```
CPU Type                 Grams Quantity    CPU Weight          Output per piece              Output per lb 
DX486                    444       19           23.5               0.18                            3.47 
IBM 6x86                 111	     3	        34.6		          0.2	                         2.62	
Pentium 100 Ceramic	   200	     7	        28.4		         0.07                            1.12	
Pentium MMX Ceramic       88	     3	        30.4		         0.09	                         1.34
K6 (caps removed)	     195	    12	        16.2		         0.08	                         2.24
Athlon Ceramic	        192	    11	        17  		         0.05                        	 1.33
```


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## necromancer (Feb 15, 2013)

rucito said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_Pro_microprocessors




thank you, (two 512 KiB dies)
looks like i need to open my eyes wider

(was originally wondering if it was a single 1024 cashe)


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## Alentia (Feb 25, 2013)

I have processed AMD Fiber Athlon and P3/Celeron following are the results:

CPU gram	Quantity	Piece gram	Output piece	Output lb

Athlon Fiber 407	37	11	0.006	0.25	0.222
Celeron/P3 Fiber	504	56	9	0.004	0.20	0.224


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## g_axelsson (Feb 25, 2013)

Alentia said:


> I have processed AMD Fiber Athlon and P3/Celeron following are the results:
> 
> CPU gram	Quantity	Piece gram	Output piece	Output Sample
> 
> ...





Alentia said:


> I have processed AMD Fiber Athlon and P3/Celeron following are the results:
> 
> 
> ```
> ...



I tried to format the table a bit more readable for the yield data.

Have I understood you right, you processed 37 Athlon Fiber CPU:s, weighing 407g or 11g/piece and you recovered 0.006g per CPU of 0.222g gold per pound.
What I don't get is the number 0.25, what does that mean?

Göran


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## rucito (Feb 27, 2013)

g_axelsson said:


> Alentia said:
> 
> 
> > I have processed AMD Fiber Athlon and P3/Celeron following are the results:
> ...


Hello
0.25/lb
0.222 from 407gr


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## Alentia (Mar 8, 2013)

I confirm, last row is total output. 0.25 is output per lb. 

Thank you for taking the time to format the data.


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## Alentia (Mar 22, 2013)

More CPU processing data. Since it was a batch, the data seems vary from data posted before. But it should can be taken as per minimum values:

Sorry guys, I do not know how are formatting the data works


```
Pounds	Total gram	Quantity	Piece gram	Output piece	Output lb	Total Output
							
Ppro-256K Cache	0.39	176	2	88	0.25	1.29	0.5
Mix broken	0.56	256	10	26	0.07	1.24	0.7
486DX	0.78	354	15	24	0.18	3.46	2.7
Cyrix 6x86	0.35	160	4	40	0.2	2.27	0.8
Motorola	0.05	24	1	24	0.07	1.32	0.07
Dec	0.14	62	1	62	0.28	2.05	0.28
AMD Athlon	0.43	194	11	18	0.05	1.29	0.55
Intel Pentium	1.15	520	17	31	0.05	0.74	0.85
AMD K6	0.29	132	6	22	0.07	1.44	0.42
Sun TurboXGX	0.07	32	1	32	0.3	4.25	0.3
386 + Mot	0.10	46	3	15	0.06	1.77	0.18
Varios yield 286-10 Cyrix cap	0.09	40	6	7	0.03	2.04	0.18
386 AMD solder	0.05	22	1	22		0.00	0
AMD K5 gold top	0.17	76	2	38	0.39	4.66	0.78
AMD K5 gold bottom	0.06	26	1	26	0.39	6.80	0.39
P90	0.10	46	1	46	0.38	3.75	0.38
Total Estimated	4.78	2166	82				9.08
```


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## necromancer (Mar 22, 2013)

export file as text and open, then copy and paste into GRF post, notepad might give you trouble (microsoft)

edit: i don't understand the names + list names + final numbers
they make no sence to me unless i missed something ?
and if you use or download this data the least you can do is say thank you to "Alentia"


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## necromancer (Mar 22, 2013)

goldsilverpro said:


> There was lots of good stuff posted in the early days. Except for stuff like auctions, nothing on here is timely. I like seeing the old stuff dredged up. Shows people are searching.



no searching, i read every post as a new member ")


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## AUH-R (Mar 23, 2013)

Hi Alentia,

Good work on the data, how can you be sure of each processor type if you processed them together? I look forward to comparing data later on in the year.

Best wishes,


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## Alentia (Mar 23, 2013)

Some data is already known and some went through tweaks. You can use this data to determine minimum values. So if you buy the CPU, you do not overpay and if you get about the same yield you did it right.

Taking Cyrix/IBM 6x86 CPUs for example. Not sure how people claim them to be over 0.25. They consistently yield 0.2 per CPU on average in a batch of alone.
486s are consistent all the time with 0.18 yield per CPU.


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## lazersteve (Mar 23, 2013)

I don't get anywhere near your results on the Cyrix/IBM. There are several varieties, the ones I run are the ones with the black bottom covers. They run 1.2 to 1.4 grams per pound average from mixed Cyrix, IBM, and VIA mixed gold tops. 

Steve


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## AUH-R (Mar 24, 2013)

Alentia said:


> Some data is already known and some went through tweaks. You can use this data to determine minimum values. So if you buy the CPU, you do not overpay and if you get about the same yield you did it right.
> 
> Taking Cyrix/IBM 6x86 CPUs for example. Not sure how people claim them to be over 0.25. They consistently yield 0.2 per CPU on average in a batch of alone.
> 486s are consistent all the time with 0.18 yield per CPU.



Thank you, I do find it helpful.

Best wishes,


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## Alentia (Apr 8, 2013)

I have obtained P-Pro with 1Mb Cache (Fiber) for the experiment. Will post results once become available with some pictures when possible.


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## Alentia (Apr 9, 2013)

1. I have removed the aluminum top from the CPU
2. I have taken out Cache/Microchip with aluminum backing and placed into HCl - aluminum backing dissolved within about 30 min
3. I have removed bottom layer of fiber to expose more PM. Pins are somewhat just a bit magnetic.
4. I have split CPU in to 2 halfs. One to be treated with Nitric and another in AP
5. Dropped Cache/Microchip into AP seprately


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## Alentia (Apr 11, 2013)

The first interesting discovery Pentium Pro 1Mb Cache has no silver content or very insignificant.
It looks like the best way to process them is with AP.

On the other hand, following will help to calculate amount of Cu content in Pentium Pro 512K Cache

Heatspreader weights 27.5 gram
Naked CPU without Pins and Heatspreader - 44 gram
Top gold foil - 0.085 gram
Considering P-Pro has about 0.5 of silver
Cu, Sn + anything else = 88gr - (27.5 + 44 + 0.5 + 0.5+5(bottom ceramic covering)) = about 10.5 gram
That would require about 45ml of HNO3 per CPU to digest base materials in an open vessel system (beaker, bucket, etc where NOx is to escape freely)
I have used 750ml for 26 CPUs or about 30 ml per CPU using NOx condenser on exhaust and it was a bit excessive.

I have decided to deep the HNO3 treated half into concentrated H2SO4 to dissolve SnO2 before moving it to AR.


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## cashtronx (Apr 11, 2013)

Hello all. Newbie here. Recently started recycling electronics for gold recovery. Great stuff here! For all PP, the amount of gold in them is based upon the size of it; 256KB, 512KB, 1MB.... There is little to none new info on the web about PP and its technology, only old stuff. I think they are still used in supercomputers and the government has bought it out. lol Just a theory!


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## AUH-R (Apr 11, 2013)

Alentia, I think your contribution to this forum is excellent and I really enjoy reading your informative posts and seeing the pictures you provide.

Thank you & best wishes,
AuH-R


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## Alentia (Apr 12, 2013)

I have a suspicion that gold from both halves got plated on what looks like some kind of four "most likely copper sticks". First AR treatment resulted in very green (blue+yellow) solution. Most likely copper from those sticks. What I saw in precipitation, I can only make visual estimate about 0.01 or 0.02 grams from each half and about 0.1 from cache. I will post actual data when gold is washed. 
I have decided to place both halves in one beaker and treat with AR again. I will post results from second AR treatment.


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## Alentia (Apr 14, 2013)

To all the disappointment fiber 1Mb Cache P-Pro yields only 0.1g of gold

0.08 for Cache/Microchip module
0.02 for pins and inside body plating

Yet to try Ceramic...


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## Alentia (Apr 27, 2013)

Some more interesting data... Not all 512K created equal.

Processed 25 x 512K Cache Pentium Pro chips.

Output 10.5 gram

Meaning: Some chips produced 0.5 gram as expected and some only 0.25 gram. Now it is too late to analyze the difference.

following can apply: 17 x 0.5 + 8 x 0.25 = 10.5 gram

Some 8 512K Cache were odd one's.


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