# Motherboard components yield



## kjavanb123 (Aug 25, 2015)

Hi all,

During last 3 days, I was busy preparing 91kg of components (PCI slots, CPU sockets, memory slots, connectors and etc) that were removed manually from 440kg motherboards mostly non-Chinese models, and 145kg peripherial cards, for smelting.

Components inside the pyrolysis unit, no smoke or fume.



Incinerated the pyrolozed components, they turned white gray, ball milled them, as the following picture,



Dissolved the base metals in dilute nitric acid, this is what the residue looks like, mostly aluminium caps, or steel frames.



And finally the residues from previous steps, were smelted, and from 91kg components, I got 6 grams of gold powder, which is very low yield, there are still unknown amount of gold in the slag, as can been seen with small beads.

Regards
Kj


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## MarcoP (Aug 25, 2015)

That's surely a low yield, can you try to mill the leftovers from the nitric, pyrolyse them again and go from there?
They should look gray and crumble easily, although I don't have first hand experience with it, while yours are still black and possibly holding values.

Marco


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## kjavanb123 (Aug 25, 2015)

MarcoP,

Thanks for your point there. But during smelting the flux and lead oxide whichare used, will melt everything down, including unburned plastics, as you can see from the photo, most of the pins were released from their casings, and the little plastic balls do not contain anything metallics.

The smelting operator, suspect some of the gold might be trapped in beads inside the slag, which he will re run them on Thursday.

But overall, I do not think gold plated components from motherboards are high yield, they are more into low yield category, that is why until I get my system from Steve of Mt Baker Mining ans Metals Co, I will have my workforce to remove only ICs, and SMD capacitors and Ta caps, this will increase their depopulating rate, and more gold can be recovered by smelting ICs.

Regqrds
Kj


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## MarcoP (Aug 25, 2015)

You're welcome Kj, if so I will do a you suggest and I won't stress about plated parts but keep removing only ICs and SMD and then sell the motherboards. I guess you just saved me a lot of work.

Marco


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## richard2013 (Aug 26, 2015)

based on motherboard pins recovery yield is with the range, 440kg motherboards will be around 880pcs motherboards each motherboards will have around 7grams plated pins no plastic, so these will give 880x8 = 6.16Kg plated pins, each kilo of pins will yield a gram or less pure Au.


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## patnor1011 (Aug 26, 2015)

richard2013 said:


> based on motherboard pins recovery yield is with the range, 440kg motherboards will be around 880pcs motherboards each motherboards will have around 7grams plated pins no plastic, so these will give 880x8 = 6.16Kg plated pins, each kilo of pins will yield a gram or less pure Au.



There is no point to try to calculate something when you do not have solid data.


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## g_axelsson (Aug 26, 2015)

Sure it is a point to do a calculation even if you don't have solid data. It's called an approximation and if you put in reasonable data where you don't have any solid data then you would get an idea of what to expect.

Göran


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## Anonymous (Aug 26, 2015)

Yes but "a calculation even if you don't have solid data" is a guess. It's not even an educated guess unless you have actually processed the kind of quantities of similar products mentioned here. There's too much guessing going on.


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## kjavanb123 (Aug 26, 2015)

Rick,

You sure about 7 grams of pure pins per motherboard?


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## Anonymous (Aug 26, 2015)

Plated pins Kevin. Don't get excited mate, deep breaths.


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## patnor1011 (Aug 26, 2015)

g_axelsson said:


> Sure it is a point to do a calculation even if you don't have solid data. It's called an approximation and if you put in reasonable data where you don't have any solid data then you would get an idea of what to expect.
> 
> Göran



While I somehow agree with this, reasonable is another problem here. Jon said it all - it is a guess and I add "a wild one". 
Kevin is simply posting way too little data for us to be able to even make guess, not to mention calculation. I do not blame him for anything, he is way too busy and try too many things at once so we should be happy with whatever info he offer. But if you want to use this data you have to try to replicate or confirm it somehow. It simply cant be used in a way to fish some numbers out of context and try to make some magical formula out of it. We do have old saying "Trust but verify" that is what everyone should do in his own interest.

We simply do not know what was actual feedstock "motherboards mostly non-Chinese models, and 145kg peripherial cards" is only what he told us. Lets not forget another crucial part that quarter of his feedstock were not motherboards at all, that is why I pointed at futility of even trying to get some calculation. Also it appears that BGA and IC were removed from this sample, who knows what else got lost, misplaced, forgotten...

There are only 4 motherboards and couple of peripheral cards in one old thread I made long time ago and that one show that all 4 motherboards contained about double amount of pins than Richard2013 came with. His guess of about approximately 7grams of pins is too low according to my observations. He also forgot to account for pins from 145kg of peripheral cards which while there is not much of pins there their yield was also in resulted button. 
And some of gold is still trapped in slag.


Rick made some guess based on what he (mis)read from Kevin's post and then even Kevin got intrigued:


kjavanb123 said:


> Rick,
> 
> You sure about 7 grams of pure pins per motherboard?



That is how fast we can go from data discussion into fantasy land. 8) 

Thread with some numbers about pin weight :arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=6169


Way too much of unknown and mixed feedstock to be able to get some data out of it. Too many types, manufacturers, dates of production... Best thing is to go by data which leaked from big boys and simply try to get to their yields. If you get significantly less, then it mean you are losing some gold in a process and you will have to try to find where.


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## richard2013 (Aug 26, 2015)

patnor1011 said:


> richard2013 said:
> 
> 
> > based on motherboard pins recovery yield is with the range, 440kg motherboards will be around 880pcs motherboards each motherboards will have around 7grams plated pins no plastic, so these will give 880x8 = 6.16Kg plated pins, each kilo of pins will yield a gram or less pure Au.
> ...



Of course this is only from my personal test, anyway anyone can just pull the pins in a single motherboard, 7 grams pins is just an estimate for we know we have multiple designs and types of motherboard. Anybody maybe have tested pulling 10 types of motherboard and record data, only to fine out there are still 10 to 20 more different types. Why 7grams estimate because PCI slots are not actually always gold plated,CPU sockets, memory slots and IDE slot yes, I would say the 7 grams estimate would be + and - 2grams. For the Peripheral yes sorry, I for get that one my opinion was only for motherboard. I have personally process 200grams of this pins no plastics and got .3g Au
It was somebody here also in grf who process 400grams pins and got .6g Au. Anybody looking for solid data can just forget this and just talk to the big boys in the industry.


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## Todor (Aug 28, 2015)

Kevin, You took out all the "gold plated" pins( lot of manual labor, that is), but what about the copper, palladium and the silver in these motherboards which 1/3 or more of the value. Best way with the motherboards is to sell them to a professional buyer(for the best price), who is gonna sent them to the smelter or straight to the smelter which is the hardest way.


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## Marcel (Dec 3, 2016)

This thread is a little bit older but I would like to state that, flash plated gold is so thin and light, it will just fly away with the smoke/hot air when smelted. That is also why professional refineries have filters and use them for recovery as well, once they are due.
So either have it processed professionally or use other methods. The workshop now may be gold plated. :roll: 
As for the non-chineese boards: If it comes to PC motherboards they almost all come from either mainland china or taiwan. The percentage of non-chineese motherboards in the market is close to 0.


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