# P-3's



## dixie (Jan 22, 2008)

I have a chance to buy roughly 100 CPU's with P-3's in them. Can anyone here tell me about what kind of gold content should be in them. In $$'s at 100% of 900 spot.

Thanks
MIke


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## lazersteve (Jan 22, 2008)

Dixie,

Considering the lot is of 'mixed' cpu's it's impossible to give a realistic yield estimate. 

To get even a close estimate, quantities of each cpu type for the lot must be known (i.e : quantity of 486's, pentium I, pentium II, etc.)

Steve


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## dixie (Jan 22, 2008)

Steve, They are p3's. I put that is the post.
MIke


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## lazersteve (Jan 22, 2008)

Dixie,

Sorrry for the confusion, I thought you said P3's in the lot, meaning the lot had some P3's in it.

Are the PIII the slotted variety or the FCPGA variety?


Steve


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## dixie (Jan 22, 2008)

All I know is there are 100 total cpu's, 4 are p2's, 6 are p4's and the rest are p3's.
That is all the information that I have to go on. They are 40 miles away from my home but I would not know how to tell one from the other. Give me a rough idea of how much melt value should be in them? If I can pick them up for 1/2 of that I may give them a try.

After I pull the processors out I can always throw what is left off the bridge at the favorite local fishing hole.

Thanks
MIke


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## lazersteve (Jan 22, 2008)

Mike,

If they are slotted pIII's your looking at :

100 x 0.0118 grams per cpu = 1.18 grams 24 kt for the fingers

There will be almost a gram of of palladium in the monolithic capacitors (approximately 0.1 gram per 10 cpus) on the 100 slotted cards. 

The cpu cores will also contain traces of gold (no accurate yield data yet).

If the PIII's are the socketed variety, you can expect less than the above yields on the gold and little or no palladium.


Steve


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## banjags (Jan 23, 2008)

how do you process those tiny little monolithic capacitors? Just throw the whole board in? What method would be used? AR? AP?


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## lazersteve (Jan 23, 2008)

I harvest them from the cards, grind, and extract with AR, HCl-Cl, or AP.

My upcoming Pt and Pd DVD will demonstrate the entire process for monolithic capacitors.

I've processed them without crushing in AP, but it's a very slow process. 

Be sure you remove the base metals first with HCl.

Lastly, be aware that they contain *Barium compounds* which can be hazardous to your health if inhaled or absorbed thru the skin. 

*Always wear a safety mask and good quality gloves when working with these.*

Steve


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## banjags (Jan 23, 2008)

how to do get them off the cards... I was think of using a toaster oven to remove all the components from cards... but what to use for motherboards?


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## lazersteve (Jan 23, 2008)

I use a small sharp chisel.

There are many ways to get them off including, but not limited to:

Heat gun
Air powered chisel
Slender needle nose pliers
HCl bath (depends on solder composition)
Hand Chisel
Screwdriver

Steve


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## banjags (Jan 23, 2008)

do you take off and save the yellow and black retangular tantalum capacitors?


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## lazersteve (Jan 23, 2008)

No.

Steve


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## dixie (Jan 23, 2008)

100 x 0.0118 grams per cpu = 1.18 grams 24 kt for the fingers

Is this also then correct 1.18g x (900spot/31.1) = $34.14 total gold value.

If that is the case then the value of the gold will not pay the gas to go and pick them up.

Mike


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## loco (Jan 23, 2008)

sounds like you'd make more $$ trying to fix a few and then selling them as used systems. 

-Rich


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## Gold Trail (Oct 3, 2009)

I must ABSOLUTLY spoil the computer recyclers in the Harrisburg PA area. we buy mother boards, low grade boards, memory, drives, processors, whole towers, power supplies, plastic, printers, keyboards, mice, hard drives, all electronics / scrap except we charge fpr monitors and TV sets

in addition to the electronics, we run a regular scrap yard for metals 

I just cant believe that the other recycling centers havent cashed in on this yet. 


Ryan


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## samuel-a (Oct 9, 2009)

dixie, i think you got it wrong in your math.

he refferd to the fingers as equal to 1.18g (or 34$ acc. to 900spot)
BTW, today it's around 39$ acc to 1045-1050$ spot 

to this you should add the harvest from the cpu's themselvs... 

ain't it?


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