# Recycling gold from computer parts



## DaMulta (Apr 20, 2012)

acid god computer parts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3yxYYaQQy8


So I seen this, and just had too wonder...how much Gold is sitting around in old computer parts? I tore a P2 apart too just see how much gold is in one...and yea there is like A LOT! Then looking around at old T.I. chips from the 80s god it's like made of solid gold..


Been thinking about ordering this acid. I did hear you can make some kind of killer bomb with the two....and get put on some damn list if you order them together...yea yea that's what internet pay by cards are for I'm thinking...


Thoughts? You can also like de-electric plate the motherboards, and there is another acid that just eats up EVERYTHING leaving the gold plating in piles....dude did it in a damn coffee pot....

I know new computer parts are like almost gold free, but not the old stuff; not at all.......


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## Winnah9000 (Apr 20, 2012)

As he said in the video's description, its not for money making. Honestly, you would need to do this on a large scale to get a good profit out of it.


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## DaMulta (Apr 20, 2012)

Well seeing how much gold is worth these days....

I've thought about it some what. I have the space too set up a vented area for the gases too be vented. I have the space for a tank to dump the acid waste by code, and the space for a large dumpster for scrap to be dumped in.

I think it would be a cool job that pays well. I'm just at the point of should I or shouldn't I do this....

Old junk or SOMEONEs Gold is just in piles almost being paid too that person just too take it off their hands. I know that for a fact. 


only thing would be meeting code settigs blablabala for OTHER workers I would say....


Just an idea. Also I did get a good bit of gold one day with just a knife in old junk. Just I don't have anything too melt it into a solid chunk. which would be time/money or was time/money(still money hehe)seeing my x-job that took the life blood from me.


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## LGV (Apr 20, 2012)

DaMulta said:


> Well seeing how much gold is worth these days....
> 
> I think it would be a cool job that pays well.



40-60 fiber cpu's will yield one gram of gold

Pentium PRO unique of gold content, may you get 0.1-0.4 g / each.

  I think thets a no-go.


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## n0tiert (Apr 20, 2012)

Sound like the old times are back.....







lol


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## DaMulta (Apr 20, 2012)

LGV said:


> 40-60 fiber cpu's will yield one gram of gold
> 
> Pentium PRO unique of gold content, may you get 0.1-0.4 g / each.
> 
> I think thets a no-go.



http://www.goldprice.org/
http://goldvaluecalculator.com/gold-calculator/
.1 would be 3.10 in value cause gold is worth a ton right now. ( 1 gram alone 31.04)

There are a ton of ebay listings about scrap parts for gold recovery, I think the main part is people don't want too mess with the http://www.ebay.com/itm/26-LBS-VINT..._0&hash=item3374e05fe3#ht_500wt_1413chemicals, and having to do away with them. it would be very easy to process a ton of shit fast I would think? 


Hell 20 P2 chips at .2 would be worth 124.2 USD. I bet the Acid would not even come close to costing that much to buy. Also I bet you could clean the acid to reuse it so too say.


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## arroyo (Apr 20, 2012)

I have tried this already 5 years ago, on my studies. I have ended with a scar on left hand from acid and two years after I stopped playing with gold mining I discovered, that I have asthma bronchiale.
If you want to do this at home...don't. It is just not worth. 
If you want to start it with larger scale and you have prepared environment for chemical experiments and you do not care about healthy lungs ... try yourself.


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## LGV (Apr 20, 2012)

DaMulta said:


> ( 1 gram alone 31.04)



Thets maybe a pure gold. What you going to get from CPU-s , thets may 14 carat or 18 .
Thets the price ( 1 gram alone 31.04) you buy it... small quantity they buy as "broken" gold  . in here ( Hungary) 
you get only about 10 dollar/gramm for it. minus 10% . 

But you knw what? You should try it just entertain TPU members with it.
Carefull with the acid tho.


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## DannibusX (Apr 20, 2012)

You might get more gold than them dudes from Gold Rush: Alaska


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## DaMulta (Apr 20, 2012)

arroyo said:


> I have tried this already 5 years ago, on my studies. I have ended with a scar on left hand from acid and two years after I stopped playing with gold mining I discovered, that I have asthma bronchiale.
> If you want to do this at home...don't. It is just not worth.
> If you want to start it with larger scale and you have prepared environment for chemical experiments and you do not care about healthy lungs ... try yourself.



i've been good around not so good stuff before lol I've playing with fire to many times in my life not to of already been hurt.... Anyways before had i would have of course face shield, mask, VENTED area(moving away from me, and have a spill bin for it too fall in if all hell broke lose. 

I have some very powerful fans already


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## DaMulta (Apr 20, 2012)

LGV said:


> Thets maybe a pure gold. What you going to get from CPU-s , thets may 14 carat or 18 .
> Thets the price ( 1 gram alone 31.04) you buy it... small quantity they buy as "broken" gold  . in here ( Hungary)
> you get only about 10 dollar/gramm for it. minus 10% .
> 
> ...



So what happens when you melt all of it together? Haven't looked into that at all.....


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## Feänor (Apr 20, 2012)

I work in a medical laboratory and even though we don't have extended chemical installation, we do use quite some on a day to day basis. Let me put this simple:

PROS

-Quite easy to get old computer parts at a small cost
-Does need some specific laboratory hardware, but not that much
-Selling gold is also easy.

CONS

-The chemicals you need in the process cost more than you can think (using low grade chemicals WILL give low grade gold)
-The process produce some REALLY nasty by-products. You will need more than good airflow and gloves to protect yourself.
-The amount of work one single person can do in one day will not give you enough money to cover your expense
-And last and not least, remember you can buy another table but not new skin or lungs...

In the end, i understand your interest, but it would be safer (!!!) to sell cocaine...

http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/550-gold-motherboard-chemistry.html


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## Completely Bonkers (Apr 20, 2012)

There was a lot of gold in the mainframes and workstations of the 1960's, 1970's, and early 1980's. By 1990 you'd be hard pushed to find much gold worth salvaging in a new machine.  I remember circa 1988 going to a local computer salvage operation where they did just that: put whole computer mainboards, sockets and CPUs in a huge hopper. Grind up, and extract the gold.  I salvaged a few 8086 CPUs from there, and also some original blueprints of wiring diagrams of an old IBM mainframe.


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## DaMulta (Apr 20, 2012)

Completely Bonkers said:


> There was a lot of gold in the mainframes and workstations of the 1960's, 1970's, and early 1980's. By 1990 you'd be hard pushed to find much gold worth salvaging in a new machine.  I remember circa 1988 going to a local computer salvage operation where they did just that: put whole computer mainboards, sockets and CPUs in a huge hopper. Grind up, and extract the gold.  I salvaged a few 8086 CPUs from there, and also some original blueprints of wiring diagrams of an old IBM mainframe.



yea i have some old 80s and I got a good amount of gold out of that stuff. Today 90s and up I bet is very slim to none.

IDK if Government old main frames, and such are all gone...I know I saw a bunch of that crap only a few years ago when I was on call. It was like companies just stuffed it in closets cause they didn't have a use nor a place to get rid of it.

I think in Tulsa there is a machine that just crunches and shacks all the different minerals out of any kind of electronic. Yet, you have too have a ton to make any money if you take anything to them I've been told.;



I really liked the Tom link. Again newer stuff, but most likely what you would find anymore.


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## Solaris17 (Apr 20, 2012)

I honk it was gizmodo that did an article on it. They even made a short YouTube vid it wasn't worth it but had some great info.


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## Cotton_Cup (Apr 20, 2012)

lol this remind me this one time, where I heard something like this about pc components having gold and where you can keep some, so I went around asking how much would I sell if I get a 80PLUS Gold psu as it has 80+ gold (more than 80 or at least 80grams or above) ahahaha newbies life, well still a newbie but learned stuff compared to before >.<


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## Black Panther (Apr 20, 2012)

Aren't pc parts gold-_plated_?
You'll get very little gold...


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## Wrigleyvillain (Apr 20, 2012)

n0tiert said:


> Sound like the old times are back.....



Yeah...cause DaMulta's back! 

(Well maybe you never really left but I haven't seen you post in forever!)


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## St.Alia-Of-The-Knife (Apr 20, 2012)

i sold a couple of Pentium Pro cpus a few months ago for about 30$ each
i guess it would be more profitable to just sell old hardware to companies dedicated to gold refining


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## OneMoar (Apr 20, 2012)

there is less then 5 dollars worth of gold in ANY computer they do not and never have used solid gold its all plated(very thinly) and its normal a fairly `dirty` low carat gold


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## ZenZimZaliben (Apr 20, 2012)

I worked pretty close to a recycle plant for old pc's. (was responsible for sending hundreds of old pc's we replaced at a prior employer.) There is way more then just gold in there to be recycled. But you have to do TONS (literally) of parts to make any cash.

Platinum, Gold, Silver, Copper, Aluminum, Nickel, Tungsten and Ferrite.

Also; Old CRT monitors are a copper mine.


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## Jetster (Apr 20, 2012)

You would have better luck in Alaska


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## Cotton_Cup (Apr 21, 2012)

btw on the CRT monitors where are they located just wanted to tinker around my old dead crt monitors from my pentium I(I remember playing this wolfenstein game here, now I play it using dosbox) and pentium II(I used to play starcraft broodwar here) and pentium III(I though back then when I had this PC it was the best pc in the world and I would keep using it even when I got old)
btw those are Compaq


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## illli (Apr 22, 2012)

I think you would make more money making moonshine


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## Winnah9000 (Apr 22, 2012)

I'll go ahead and extend why I said it wasn't worth it. I worked for a company that did recycling of computers as a huge component to their business. They would ship CPUs in 1000 piece lots and get $200 for the whole thing from the smelters. They would also ship 100 PCs (no CPU or RAM) and get $100 for the whole lot. The majority of these lots were P4s or lower.

Its not worth it, especially when you factor in time spent doing it and chemicals and disposal.


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## acepwnsyou (May 9, 2012)

n0tiert said:


> Sound like the old times are back.....
> 
> http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T_NQK02OKaI/T1-W_5_wDzI/AAAAAAAAAFI/0A-Uxu86xpo/s1600/miners.jpg
> 
> lol



i spit my pop out through my nose LOL


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## Mindweaver (May 9, 2012)

I have a friend that use to do this... and He gave it up after it didn't pay off.. and he removed the gold and the platinum from hard drives. Newer computers just don't have enough material to extract... Just an example.. I gave him 25 Dell - I can't remember what model, but they had pIII 900mhz, 128mb sdram, 80gb hd's. He only made a little over $100... and He had a lab and everything. So, I wouldn't do it..


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## sensys (Apr 4, 2013)

*Gold recycling*

Hi, I saw this post and decide to register. Subject is a year old but I'm wondering does anyone decided to recycle gold from computer parts?

I'm not good with acids, so I think doing it with reverse electroplating process like on this video 

Is it possible to collect gold in this way, without using any chemical at all?


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## Asus7950DCII (Apr 4, 2013)

its people like ^ this that i have nothing to tell them
sorry bro


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## BiggieShady (Apr 4, 2013)

Take a look at this gold extraction process from motherboards 

http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/550-gold-motherboard-chemistry.html

bottom line, this is what you get from bunch of motherboards:

this







from this


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