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Need help identifying this computer board

There's only tiny amounts of gold on the older chips, most of it is on the pins. It is not worthwhile to spend money on the recovery of gold from chips. Old circuit boards had gold and other precious metals and were worthwhile to melt down.
 
There is a very small amount of gold in circuit boards also just like in chips. But If you have a large volume of either then its worth processing them by the ton to make money (gold is $420 an ounce).
 
Unknown_K said:
There is a very small amount of gold in circuit boards also just like in chips. But If you have a large volume of either then its worth processing them by the ton to make money (gold is $420 an ounce).

i sometimes see people destroying chips for gold while this is a good idea
if they are defective i see alot of people doing it to older chips they declare
worthless while not a crime it makes me sick to see such waste.
 
joe sixpack said:
Unknown_K said:
There is a very small amount of gold in circuit boards also just like in chips. But If you have a large volume of either then its worth processing them by the ton to make money (gold is $420 an ounce).

i sometimes see people destroying chips for gold while this is a good idea
if they are defective i see alot of people doing it to older chips they declare
worthless while not a crime it makes me sick to see such waste.

Some chips were made in the millions. Should people pile up all their junk instead of recycling so that a few collectors could find the chips (or other collectables) they need? If every mickey mantle rookie card, every 1930's movie poster, every Superman edition 1 was kept by everyone in mint condition we would run out of space trying to store them and they would be worth nothing.
 
Here's a sort of interesting link regarding computer recycling in general:

http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/pubs/sayno.htm

Since reclamation means someone somewhere is making a buck off it, what seems to happen is the stuff gets shipped to China and India, where there aren't any real envirronmental controls, labour laws, etc. which makes for cheap operating costs.

See http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/59672_ewaste25.shtml
for an example.

Somewhere I saw a picture of these little kids in India whacking off the glass seal on the back of CRT's to de-vacuum with a hammer, and then whacking off the neck assembly to pull out the gun assembly for reclemation. They were in the middle of a junk yard, barefoot, no safety goggles, nothing.

While I'm all for recycling, I don't think that's the way to go, so I do my part by keeping as many old pc's as I can in my basement. And attic. And the rest of the house... :)

patscc
 
Either India and China will allow their country to become a toxic waste dump, or they will come up with their own EPA and safer working conditions. Once they do that then the rest of the world might gets it manufacturing back.
 
re recovering gold from chips and/or boards.

re recovering gold from chips and/or boards.

If one gets into recovering gold then one should watch for a sale or sources of as many boards as possible, but especially MIL-SPEC multi-layer boards. Years ago I had a "deck" of unpopulated boards surplussed from the Apollo space program. There were 18 ir 19 boards, about 4" by 6" and were either 4 or 6 layer boards. Every conductor land was plated with 40 mil gold and every edge connector pin was plated with 60 mil gold. The stack of boards weighed over a pound and a quarter. Subtract the 4 or 6 layers of thin green "glass" boards and you still have a lot of gold!
I have a close friend who has about 12 acres of government surplus electronics including computers, crt terminals, printers and lsots of instrmentation grade electronics and components. This guy is (seriously) nutty as a fruitcake and I can't get him to do anything but promise himself that soon he will make himself famous for one of the inventions he will develop from the stuff.
Ray
 
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