# IBM ceramic CPUs and their boards



## kjavanb123 (Feb 1, 2019)

Hi

I was at a scrap yard and these old goodies got my attention. Total of 10 IBM p160 CPUs and 1 Pentium CPU.

They were in these boards. They will be processed this weekend and I will post results.

Any estimate on CPUs yield? Last time I processed these and got 0.5g of gold per CPU.

CPU collection



Boards that CPUs were on them


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## ChemGeek (Feb 2, 2019)

Don't destroy these!
Sell them on eBay via auction, one at the time and quadruple your profits.
Collectors love them.


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 2, 2019)

Hi

I agree with you on prices they can go on ebay for a collector, but currently I am in Iran and ebay is filtered here.

Best regards
KJ


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## niks neims (Feb 2, 2019)

kjavanb123, If you are not familiar with it, there is this PDF document here "GNS - e-Scrap Yield List v1.0" by member Samuel-a, It has a lot of yields on different CPU's and it seems to be trusted universally here - incidentally it lists Au in the IBM 6x86 in the array of 0.45-0.55 g/unit - so about the same as your verified yield... I haven't processed any gold-cap CPU myself, but before putting any up on e-bay I usually check this list for the minimum asking price


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 3, 2019)

Hi Arthur

Yes I know about that list. The IBM CPU there is P228 model and these were P150+ models.

The primary precipitation doesn't look good at all to be similar to those numbers in the list.

I will get the gold melted tommorow and also try to get the silver chloride converted to metal ans report my findings here.

Best regards
KJ


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 4, 2019)

Hi

Finally the result of chemically processing the 10 IBM 6x86 p150 is in.

Total gold recovered 0.32 grams from 10 units

Total silver recovered 1.01 grams from 10 units

Exteremely disappointing results which means on average each unit has 0.032 grams of gold and 0.1 grams of silver.

Here is the photo of crushed CPUs after process conpleted



This shows the precitpited gold from AR solution



This is the gold bar, NOTE: the weight is combined weights of gold from 10 CPUs and another 2 gram gold.



This is recovered silver, converted from silver from 10 CPUs



This is silver bar from above



The entire process took 5 hours to dissolve gold and silver from 10 units of ceramic IBM CPUs

Hope that helps people who might come accross these types of CPUs and as it is advised selling them on eBay would be the only viable choice.


Best regards
KJ


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## g_axelsson (Feb 4, 2019)

I've sold several CPU:s like that for $10 each on ebay. It's clear that I did the right thing.

Göran


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## Dr.xyz (Feb 4, 2019)

Didn't Owltech test these same CPU:s a while ago and he got way more?


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## anachronism (Feb 4, 2019)

kjavanb123 said:


> Hi
> 
> Finally the result of chemically processing the 10 IBM 6x86 p150 is in.
> 
> ...



No youve got your process wrong or something drastically incorrect. Those yield figures are completely incorrect. That's the plain truth of the matter.


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## Owltech (Feb 4, 2019)

My take on this type:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irMDfWA5SM8&t=1s

slightly better than your result but still very disappointing


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## niks neims (Feb 4, 2019)

I don't know guys, seems awful low...

kjavanb123, did you process lids also?


Someone should address this, is this http://www.goldnscrap.com/yieldlist.pdf list that wrong...

Doesn't make that much difference to me, since I still mostly sell them on e-bay anyway, but I kind of got the feeling that Sam's list was GRF approved 

Or could it be because if the model type (6x68MX pr233 vs 6x68 p150+)... checking Owltech's video it looks like he had 6x68L pr166+, at least one of them


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## g_axelsson (Feb 4, 2019)

Owltech, so in average about 0.12 g/cpu.

It seems like IBM used a lean manufacturing process compared to Intel. I've seen them using glue (epoxy) instead of braze to fasten the cpu:s in ceramic bodies. Maybe that is a good explanation why the results for these chips are low.

Makes it an even better deal to sell the CPU:s on eBay.

Göran


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## niks neims (Feb 4, 2019)

I`m no CPU-guy, but this intrigues me, mostly because of the GNS - e-Scrap Yield List v1.0

Judging by this link there is not that much of an age difference for these variations of IBM 6x86.... https://cpumuseum.jimdo.com/museum/ibm/6x86-6x86mx/#swap

but they were produced both at IBM (America) and SGS-Thomson (Europe)....


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## anachronism (Feb 4, 2019)

Owltech said:


> My take on this type:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irMDfWA5SM8&t=1s
> 
> slightly better than your result but still very disappointing



There's a world of difference between your 0.1225 per chip and Kevin's results, it's not just slightly different. I'm not sure where Kevin's gold went.


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## Dr.xyz (Feb 4, 2019)

Does it look like incomplete digestion in one of the pictures?


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 4, 2019)

I re-run the crushed CPUs to make sure nothing is re-deposited.

Thanks for your input.


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## philddreamer (Feb 4, 2019)

IMHO, It seems like some of the solder on the gold cap was not dissolved, and also the gold solder inside the silicon chip...
I believe there's still some gold in them processed CPU's.
Sometime ago, I processed similar CPU's, Pentium Pro's to be exact, I had left behind some gold...
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=12845&hilit=pentium+pro&start=210#p128293
I hope this helps.

Take care!
Phil


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 6, 2019)

Hi

After trying to re-dissolve crushed IBM cpus, I could squeeze another 0.1g of gold picture below,



And another 0.3 g of silver. So the final yield from processing 10 IBM CPUs 6x85 p150+ is as following

Total gold: 0.420g 
Gold per CPU: 0.0420g

Total silver: 1.31g
Silver per CPU: 0.131g

Conclusion if you find them sell them on eBay.

I am processing the boards and will post yieldsin a different topics.


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## anachronism (Feb 7, 2019)

Thanks Kevin

I will say though that my yields for these are almost identical to Owl's yields so I still suggest that something has gone awry. 

Jon


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## Dr.xyz (Feb 7, 2019)

Pins alone should reach Kevin's numbers.

For example, take AMD K6-2: same Socket 7, same number of pins but with alu-lid and flip chip, and still yields 0.03-0.04g/CPU.


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## ChemGeek (Feb 7, 2019)

It seems that these ceramic processors belong to ebay and collectors.
One can easily get 2-4 fold Au value by selling them there.
Refiners who try to recover Au from these should ask themselves, if they are not attempting to duplicate Great Leap policies of commander Mao of China.
Just a lot of work to reduce value of your feedstock.
It is easy to question competence of each other etc, but ebay is a safe bet uniformly delivering better results, so why not to use it?
Of course there are many damaged no longer merchantable processors out there which need to be recycled. Other are best left as they are.

I would only ask kjavanb123 to think well what could go wrong, eg was there an excess of nitric left and not enough of Na2S2O5 used to precipitate Au, or maybe not enough of nitric/hydrochloric, possibility of cementation on other metals etc before final conclusion is reached.


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 7, 2019)

ChemGeek said:


> I would only ask kjavanb123 to think well what could go wrong, eg was there an excess of nitric left and not enough of Na2S2O5 used to precipitate Au, or maybe not enough of nitric/hydrochloric, possibility of cementation on other metals etc before final conclusion is reached.



Hi

I can't really point at anything out of norm in the process. I even tried to do another AR on crushed pieces and got only 0.1g

Even at the 0.1g per CPU seems very low with that gold cap.

Best regards
KJ


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## ChemGeek (Feb 7, 2019)

Kevin,
OK, you got what you got. That is the way how these are often processed. No obvious error.
Perhaps there are members here who can say more about different batches of these CPUs produced in different plants.
Maybe some substandard version, less realiable and also of lower Au content was sold to Iran and to some other nations unfavored by US?


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 7, 2019)

I lean toward difference in manufacturing caused my results. Which proved once again selling to collector would be the wise thing to do.

I am processing the boards, depopulation is finished.


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## Owltech (Feb 7, 2019)

I was told that the yield also depends on the manufacturing plant (Malaysia, Singapore or Mexico)


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## anachronism (Feb 8, 2019)

Owltech said:


> I was told that the yield also depends on the manufacturing plant (Malaysia, Singapore or Mexico)



It does, but it doesn't vary by that much.


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## johnny309 (Feb 14, 2019)

I was told that the yield also depends on the manufacturing plant (Malaysia, Singapore or Mexico)

Not true. 
Why? Because is a blueprint...is quality control...and is processors(with a lot of rejected items...about 30%)...so you got to stick to specification of original project ...no matter in which country.
They used the same assembly line and the same machines.


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## anachronism (Feb 14, 2019)

kjavanb123 said:


> I lean toward difference in manufacturing caused my results. Which proved once again selling to collector would be the wise thing to do.
> 
> I am processing the boards, depopulation is finished.



Sorry old friend but they are never that low.


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## solar_plasma (Feb 15, 2019)

Do you have a picture of the processed cpu's? According to the thread beneath, the first batch was not processed to the end. 

https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=23462&p=247224&hilit=cpu+tungsten#p247224


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 16, 2019)

solar_plasma said:


> Do you have a picture of the processed cpu's? According to the thread beneath, the first batch was not processed to the end.
> 
> https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=23462&p=247224&hilit=cpu+tungsten#p247224



No, after my second AR leaching them I threw them away.


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 16, 2019)

Hi

I finally completed processing boards that came with those IBM ceramic CPUs. Here is a breakdown of numbers.

Number of boards: 14 pieces
Total weight: 7,172 grams (15.8 lbs)

Total weight of boards
after depopulation: 2,780 grams (6.1 lbs)

Total weight of ICs: 380 grams (0.8 lb)

Total weight of pins
and their plastics: 3120 grams (6.8 lbs)

ICs
They were first pyrolized then incinerated and crushed to fine powder as in the following photo,



Those are then sifted using kitchen sifter, oversized were digested in HCL, then AR. The fines that pass through the sifter, processed using concentrated lye solution and heat to concentrate to much smaller volume then dissolved in AR. 


For more information on how to use concentrated lye solution to dissolve much of silica, tin or aluminum please watch this video.
https://youtu.be/Z47ZEyD5zSE

Gold bond wires visible,



That was dissolved in AR and yielded 0.8-0.7 of gold brown powder, the atual yield will be known after final melting.

Pins:
Those pins and anyother gold plated components was processing using 7000 ml hot tap water, 20 grams of sodium cyanide, and 10 ml of hydrogen peroxide. 
It was quick, and components were rinsed in hot water 3 times, and aluminum foils were dropped in combined rinsed and cyanide solution over night.

Pins and gold plated parts after cyanide leaching completed



And here is solution with aluminum foils after 24 hrs, filtered aluminum foils washed 3 times with hot water, HCL added, residue with some junk remained



Yield from pins roughly 0.1-0.15 grams of gold as it has not being melted.

Thanks and regards
KJ


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## anachronism (Feb 16, 2019)

Kevin please confirm something for me that I may have read incorrectly.

Did you find 0.1 to 0.15g of gold from 3.16Kg of pins in their plastics?


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 16, 2019)

anachronism said:


> Kevin please confirm something for me that I may have read incorrectly.
> 
> Did you find 0.1 to 0.15g of gold from 3.16Kg of pins in their plastics?



Since recovered gold was small amount there might be off in my scale. I would know for sure when gold powder is melted.

Best
KJ


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## kernels (Feb 17, 2019)

anachronism said:


> Kevin please confirm something for me that I may have read incorrectly.
> 
> Did you find 0.1 to 0.15g of gold from 3.16Kg of pins in their plastics?



That's the way I read it based on his picture of the stripped connectors. I'm not sure whether I think that is good or bad, but certainly very easy if you are able to acquire Sodium Cyanide!


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## anachronism (Feb 17, 2019)

Kernels

It's not enough yield.


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## niks neims (Feb 17, 2019)

kjavanb123 said:


> Total weight: 7,172 grams (15.8 lbs)
> yielded 0.8-0.7 of gold
> Yield from pins roughly 0.1-0.15 grams of gold
> KJ



That is some low numbers KJ :/, it comes out to only about 110-130 PPM Au, or about 30 % lower than I would expect from material like that... Not sure what caused it - but since your yield on the CPU's also was lower than expected - maybe there is a common answer there....

Or maybe gospel according to Jon is correct, and we're in for a rude awakening due to diminishing PCB yields 

Did you process your batch for Pd, Ag & Cu also?


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 17, 2019)

niks neims said:


> kjavanb123 said:
> 
> 
> > Total weight: 7,172 grams (15.8 lbs)
> ...



Niks

Yes that seems low since these are old boards and I had recovered 150 ppm Au from such boards using lead smelting.

No I haven't done silver/palladium recovery on them yet or copper.

They are going to be done soon. I am also collecting small socket PC boards for processing


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 17, 2019)

kernels said:


> anachronism said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin please confirm something for me that I may have read incorrectly.
> ...



Kernel

Yes that is how much gold powder was recovered from pins but my scale is not that accurate so I will take powders to jewler melt them and weigh them on his scale.

Cyanide is so fast and great for gold plated or even silver scraps.


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## anachronism (Feb 18, 2019)

kjavanb123 said:


> Cyanide is so fast and great for gold plated or even silver scraps.



It certainly is, however how do you check to make sure that you have no values left in the solution before calculating your yields?


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## niks neims (Feb 18, 2019)

kjavanb123 said:


> Niks
> 
> Yes that seems low since these are old boards and I had recovered 150 ppm Au from such boards using lead smelting.
> 
> ...



Glad to hear it, still for large socket MB (& slot CPU MB, pre-2001) a number of ~170 PPM Au would be my guess, Ag & Pd yields there should be rather high, so that too needs to be accounted for, for full value; also Cu...

As I understand, lead smelting is your "industrial" way of processing MB, and HCL+AR is analytical, laboratory method? If so, it's a little bit strange that the latter yields lower than former - one would think it should be the other way around, it`s obvious that streamlined industrial process could leave some fringe values behind, analytical process on the other hand should be as precise as possible... Maybe go over your designed procedure once more, where could the losses come from? On a hunch, mechanical processes (like grinding, milling) always make me nervous when it comes to soft, malleable gold......
In any case I am eagerly looking forward your results, as always


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 18, 2019)

anachronism said:


> kjavanb123 said:
> 
> 
> > Cyanide is so fast and great for gold plated or even silver scraps.
> ...



I left couple of large aluminum foils in pregnant cyanide solution for over 24 hours and the fact some part of those fails didnt turn grayish black tells me that all gold was cemented by foils.


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 18, 2019)

niks neims said:


> kjavanb123 said:
> 
> 
> > Niks
> ...



Niks

I have had better results smelting with lead oxide specifically on bigger lots (100lbs+).

When using chemicals to recover values from such small sample, room for error and losses is higher.

In my next batch I will use litharge to process SMDs and ICs to make sure I can get majority of values.

I am currently depopulating 3.6 kg of small socket MB, as I am collecting more to reach at least 20 kg lot, trying to remove SMDs and a luminous capacitors manually, since SMDs during my heated depopulation gets mixed with solders.

For my new lot of small socket PCBs I want to recover aluminum as well as solders along the metals of interest.

KJ


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## niks neims (Feb 18, 2019)

kjavanb123 said:


> I have had better results smelting with lead oxide specifically on bigger lots (100lbs+).
> 
> When using chemicals to recover values from such small sample, room for error and losses is higher.



makes sense 



kjavanb123 said:


> For my new lot of small socket PCBs I want to recover aluminum as well as solders along the metals of interest.



good idea & excellent approach, especially since you probably have some use for aluminium in your in-house processes... I would suggest for you to look in to recovering tin (from solder, etc.) also, I have a hunch there is quite a lot of untapped value there (have heard about 2% (no idea if it is even realistic)), with spot price being up to $21/kg, total Sn value in MB could be on par with that of Ag.... especially since most large processors don't pay out on it at all... 

Maybe NaOH leach for tin & aluminium? or HCL?


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## anachronism (Feb 18, 2019)

kjavanb123 said:


> anachronism said:
> 
> 
> > kjavanb123 said:
> ...



Cyanide can take a lot longer to drop its goodies than that. Depending upon the type of oxidant, the strength (or over strength) of CN- used it can take many days or weeks.

Edit I hope you kept all your "spent" solutions.


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 18, 2019)

[/quote]
good idea & excellent approach, especially since you probably have some use for aluminium in your in-house processes... I would suggest for you to look in to recovering tin (from solder, etc.) also, I have a hunch there is quite a lot of untapped value there (have heard about 2% (no idea if it is even realistic)), with spot price being up to $21/kg, total Sn value in MB could be on par with that of Ag.... especially since most large processors don't pay out on it at all... 

Maybe NaOH leach for tin & aluminium? or HCL?
[/quote]

Niks

We use aluminum to drop Pd from nitrate silution as we add HCL to Pd nitrate and aluminum and it does cementing rather quickly, also for silver chloride conversion to silver aluminum scrap is used.

Heat sinks that we save from PC boards are excellent for these. Aluminum foils comes from restaurants take-out.

During my depopulation which is done inside an oven designed for this purpose, solders are recovered as molten pieces and can we separted from the rest of components easily by sifting. But that requires to remove SMDs prior to oven depopulating.

Regards
KJ


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 18, 2019)

anachronism said:


> It certainly is, however how do you check to make sure that you have no values left in the solution before calculating your yields?



I left couple of large aluminum foils in pregnant cyanide solution for over 24 hours and the fact some part of those fails didnt turn grayish black tells me that all gold was cemented by foils.
[/quote]

Cyanide can take a lot longer to drop its goodies than that. Depending upon the type of oxidant, the strength (or over strength) of CN- used it can take many days or weeks.

Edit I hope you kept all your "spent" solutions.
[/quote]

Yes I have kept spent cyanide solution. Whenever I used zinc powder, cementation was completed in 24 hours so in thick telecomm pons actually in an hour.

Is it so because aluminum reaction is differnt from that of zinc powder?


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## kernels (Feb 18, 2019)

Appreciate your sharing kjavanb123! Always nice to see what you are up to.


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## anachronism (Feb 19, 2019)

It's not necessarily completed so fast, and there's the "redissolve" thing that can be going on as well.


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## nickton (Apr 3, 2019)

I often wonder whether some of the gold plating isn't just spray painted on by dishonest manufacturers.


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