# motherboards



## arthur kierski

an analist who does analising for people who export scrap motherboards to countries which does pm extraction ,says that there are from 0,8 to 2% of pm in those motheboards(at least 5years old)

does anyone in the forum have information(data) of this?is it possible?
waiting for replies with great expectation yours
Arthur kierski


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## Rag and Bone

That means 16-40 pounds of PMs per ton of mobos. If that is true I've been getting screwed worse than I thought. Don't count on it.


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## silversaddle1

Rag and Bone said:


> That means 16-40 pounds of PMs per ton of mobos. If that is true I've been getting screwed worse than I thought. Don't count on it.




Really! Who came up with that figure? I had heard once that a ton of good older PCB.s would yield about 4 ounces of gold and 40 ounces of silver? I always thought that was about right. No way it's .08 to 2% of gross.


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## arthur kierski

he said motherboards---a ceramic processor in a motherboard may have 0,1grams of gold. an average motherboard weights 500gram----1ton is 2000 motherboards 2000x0,1=200grams----6,43ounces----and the silver,pd,memories threads with pins etc , etc


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## kamranashraf

One ton (2000 lbs) of "average" circuit board from modern computers and electronics generally yields (in a very good system) between 8 and 11 troy ounces of 24k gold. This gold is found in a number of places, including the plated gold leads referred to earlier, on plated pins inside the connectors and on the board in a number of places and on and within the ic (integrated circuits) on the board itself. In addition, there will generally be around 10 to 20 times this amount in silver from the solder and other components (although depending upon the method of recovery, this yield may not be reached). Some types of electronic board have greater yields of silver and almost no gold; this is generally the board without connector ends and major ics. There are also minute amounts of palladium, platinum and other pgms (mostly in certain capacitors, but also in some chips and connectors). Your highest yields of gold in computer scrap especially are rarely from clipped plated leads, but from the processor/cpu, memory and other ics (which can yield 2 gm/lb or more, depending upon the type and age). Many of the older electronics and early computer equipment will be much much higher in volume, while the newest (97 and newer) I would surmise would be lower, although I have not processed enough to tell you for sure. There are, of course, many other places (like automotive catalytic converters) where you can find precious metals that may be recycled.
k ashraf


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## arthur kierski

thanks K Ashraf for the detailed information on pm in motherboards----i made a quick calculation and came with the folowing:11ounces of gold=342grams---20times more in silver=6840grams----6840+342grams=7182grams which is 07182 or almost072%----thanks again for your information and welcome to the gold refining forum-----------------just a remainder:iton=2200lbs,so the number should be---0,72%+0,072=0,79% as the analist told me----0,80%


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## SapunovDmitry

300 gr per ton? I thought it was 120-180gr/tn.


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## patnor1011

Has to be somewhere near that percentage as arthur said... my friend who own recycling bussines is separating pcbs to 3 types:
1. computer mobos, phone pcbs, telecom types
2. dvd, video, printers - generally pcbs not hugely populated with at least one two chips /flatpacks/
3. all the rest
the price he was getting last time when I spoke to him 4 months ago was:
1. 3600 - 3800 euro/ton
2. 1800 - 1900 euro/ton 
3. 260 - 280 euro/ton
that was paid by major refiner in czech and slovak republic.
He is getting different price for processors and memory sticks. 
So if he is getting say 3700 euro per ton that is roughly 5200 usd if I am right.

As kamranashraf said it is 8 to 11 ounces per ton so if we will not be greedy and stick with that lower amount 8 ounces which is 248 grams - that means nearly 5000 euro per ton. We can say that refiner is making something like 1300 euro per ton on gold only [plus all the silver, copper ........]

Hope that I did not make any mistake in my little calculation as i am typing this in a hurry...
Just my 2 {euro}cents.


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## arthur kierski

patnor1011,i think you are correctin in your thinking


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## SapunovDmitry

Are there any CPUs in boards?
Sounds strange, but reasonable....
Trying to roughly estimate the value of a ton.
At least 20% of copper per ton was about 1000 $.
180 gr per ton of gold is 3500$.
1000 gr - 2000 gr of silver gives 300- 600 $.
80 gr of Pd adds 300-350$.
So it is ~5500$ the most.
So or there is more gold in average in telecom and PC (phone cards are much better than PC and back panels from telecom equipment with only connectors on them) or maybe MUCH more copper, but I doubt it. 
Do those refiners work with the ore, cause it is very important?


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## arthur kierski

dimitry sapunov----when one says cpu in motherboards,one wants to say processors---each motherboard have at least one processor(or cpu) and its average weiight(wy of the motherboard)) is 500grams , so 1ton of motherboards have2000 processors(cpus) and in this processors there is at least 240 grams of gold =at least 6800dollars----each motherboard have at least 2memories stick=4000memories per ton,anothe 3ounces of gold=2550dollars----5kilos silver=1600dollars----so by my calculations you have already11000dollars------the confusion is that the thread is motherboards------1ton of motherboards is what i am talking about-----1ton of boards obviously does not have the values which 1ton of motherboards have---i think that this thread eliminates the confusion


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## SapunovDmitry

Two things need comments here....
1. When i write boards here i mean motherboards.
2. The stuff you are talking about cannot be in real life. When you recieve computer for utilization it can have or don't have CPU and memory and in average you DO get some CPUs from motherboards but not always. The thing i wanted to ask about is --> Are there any CPUs in those boards or you preprocess boards and remove everything from them and we are talking just about bare motherboards? Cause I can believe if they get some CPUs and sticks in motherboards they can pay this money for boards. In other words do you preprocess boards before shipping them to the factory?


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## patnor1011

Hi Dimitrij...
That 3 category of boards are boards only, they remove from cathegory 1 all memory RAM sticks, CPU and batery. What is left is board with flatpacks, conectors, pins, capacitors etc.

He is getting preciselly that amount what I have said before. They pay bit more for CPUs and memory sticks. Ill be talking with him in next few days so Ill ask about actual prices he is getting for all 3 types of boards and CPUs and RAMs in these days.

In fact he is separating PCB to 4 types but the last one I didnt mention is PCB from old television sets which were produced in Slovakia, Czech, Poland and USSR they are very high in silver. I didnt mention this as most of the people here are from USA and they have no access to this type of boards as they are specific for east europe region.


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## patnor1011

Hi Dimitrij...
That 3 category of boards are boards only, they remove from cathegory 1 all memory RAM sticks, CPU and batery. What is left is board with flatpacks, conectors, pins, capacitors etc.

He is getting preciselly that amount what I have said before. They pay bit more for CPUs and memory sticks. Ill be talking with him in next few days so Ill ask about actual prices he is getting for all 3 types of boards and CPUs and RAMs in these days.

In fact he is separating PCB to 4 types but the last one I didnt mention is PCB from old television sets which were produced in Slovakia, Czech, Poland and USSR they are very high in silver. I didnt mention this as most of the people here are from USA and they have no access to this type of boards as they are specific for east europe region.


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## silversaddle1

When gold was in the $1000.00 per oz. range, our local scrapyard was paying $2.70 a pound for high-grade boards. That's $5400.00 a ton! It would be very interesting to see if they made any money on that stuff.


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## kamranashraf

my last query include only computer mother board,hard disk,flopy drive boards.there is no memory stick cpu/processors .pc boards include memmory stick and cpu have above 400 Grms Au.with my calculation there is 446 Grm Au p/Ton 10220 Ag p/Ton scrap contain 70% computer with memmory sticks Cpu,20% cell phone and 10%MIx.if you have P1 borad processors & memmories scrap then you can expect more.recycle compnies have a farmula which they apply on what type of scrap they have.normly you can blindly beleive on my last querry which is very accurate for hobbiest and others biggners,

kamran ashraf


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## SapunovDmitry

Yeah....They are sweet....Espec. TV boards from old russian TV sets.They usually have 5-10 times more gold than Telecom boards have now.Some of the old dip-like chips have as much gold as 486 CPU...


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## patnor1011

yeah... or that czechoslovak relay where that button-like contact is not gold plated but made entirely from pure gold... last time when I was there I saw a box full of them something like 12-15 kg of them...
picture is for illustration


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## megacik

patnor1011 said:


> yeah... or that czechoslovak relay where that button-like contact is not gold plated but made entirely from pure gold... last time when I was there I saw a box full of them something like 12-15 kg of them...
> picture is for illustration



I have many of them and today opened 5 of them, and only one had golden contacts. Then tested these contacts with gold tester and it looks like 18 carat or more(on the top). I am not sure if it is solid gold, because it is too small to test it, but later i will try to harvest more and then i will try AP on it.


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## patnor1011

nice to have fellow countryman onboard... not all of them are solid gold, only certain types, will try to find out what type is the best... where are you from? pm me in slovak...


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## patnor1011

Here is update as promised on prices. Just spoke to my friend about that 3 types of PCBs as he selling them to refiners. Prices went down but very slightly. 
1. was 95 czech koruna and now is 80 czech koruna which is 4,200.55$/ton
2. was 45 czech koruna and now is 40 czech koruna which is 2,103.53 $/ton
3. was 7 czech koruna and now is 3 czech koruna which is 157.68 $/ton

http://www.xe.com/ucc/ currency convert used.

This is what he is getting now.


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## megacik

patnor1011 said:


> nice to have fellow countryman onboard... not all of them are solid gold, only certain types, will try to find out what type is the best... where are you from? pm me in slovak...



You have PM.

By the way, Slovak corona(EURO from 1.1.2009) is very strong now....


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## megacik

I have thrown a small amount of these relay contacts(but before - with hammer I made a thin shim from it) to AP. For test purposes I´ve added also a little gold contacts from old VESA cards.


*After 2 days:*
- all the gold from the contacts of VESA cards are floating arround as I expected, but all of this thin shims are intact. They are the same as before, what kind of metal is not reacting in AP? Could it be pure gold, as we were thinking? Or something else?


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## patnor1011

Any pictures please?


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## megacik

Sorry for the quality. I will leave this working for a week and then I will post the results.


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## lazersteve

Your contact points may be gold plated silver. I've processed the points by melting together then using nitric to leave the gold. The video is on my website under the Silver section: Separating Silver from Gold.

Steve


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## megacik

I thought so about a silver, but I already tested gold flake with gold tester, and it is still showing 18-24 carat gold in the middle. Also the flake was golden-yellow inside, after I hammered it....so now I am not sure, if it is silver or not.

Thank you for the video, sometimes I´ll try it. But before I have to buy chemicals. Here in Slovakia I can´t find nothing except HCL and H2O2


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## qst42know

It would be difficult to hammer a gold plated contact in such a way as to expose the center. Gold is notorious for being able to be hammered extremely thin and still give the appearance of being solid. Even cutting with nippers would likely just stretch the gold layer and still not expose the core.


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## megacik

That sounds to me more interesting, that I expected, because I did these flakes with hammer very easily. I hit 2-3 times and from small button became thin "cornflake"


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## goldsilverpro

Silver also flattens very easily. Also, if you cut the point, and the point was gold over silver (common), the gold would smear over the cut. The way I would test it would be to file across the point and examine the color with an eye loupe. If you see white, silver is under the gold. Put a drop of nitric in the notch. After about 10-15 seconds, add a drop of HCl or salt water. A white precipitate says that it is silver. 

You can first file off a little of the point and then cut off the whole point with a knife and put it into a small amount of 50/50 nitric. Add a little heat. If all that remains is a gold shell, silver was present. You can also test the solution for silver with HCl or salt water.

How did you determine the point to be 18-24K? Touchstone? Electronic gold tester? Both are unreliable if the gold smeared over the cut when you cut into it.


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## megacik

I have electronic pen tester for gold, I am testing jewelery with it.

I have tested "button" before I removed it from relay and I thought It is only plated gold, but then....I made a flake from it and tested again in the middle and that was the same. I threw it into AP a there was no change. 


They are not producing anymore, they were used in old switchboards(1989 and later, but most of them are still working), usualy are selling for 0,5 USD - 2 USD, but some stores are selling it for 10 USD e.g.
http://www.elida.cz/cze/elida/scripts/detailzbozi.aspx?Kod=0040110995

But as I said, we will see after testing


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## megacik

After a week:

- there were 2 types of contacts, the first are now black colour(silver?), the second hasn´t changed after a week.

It is interesting, that all foils from VESA card has disolved in AP  Is it usual?


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## Oz

Megacik,

Not knowing the details of your AP bath I would assume that you over oxidized the solution with too much H2O2. The gold is not lost and can be recovered with SMB or if you continue to use the bath for other fingers it will cement out as a fine black powder as your solution increases in Cu content.


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