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Has anyone here actually gone thru the process of extracting the gold from computers and other electronics?

How much did you start off with? How much did it yield?

Where did you get your chemicals and other supplies from?

I have acquired several computers over the past few months, and I am salivating at the prospect of mining old computers.

Start here.

http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3 ... 936d663e96

This oughta get them some new members. Great post scrapman.

Can't argue with that one. Great place to start. Most members there will insist that you read "Refining Precious Metal Wastes" by C. M. Hoke, referred to there as "Hoke's Book" although she did author others. Please do so. It is a free download with links found in many members signature lines. While the technology for refining PMs has changed much over the years, the techniques and processes have had very little change.

For those, who like myself, have no formal background in metallurgy or chemistry, the learning curve can be very steep and long, if you actually want to go forward on the path to recovery and refining of PMs. Be Safe. Go. Play. Have fun.

My uncle is intent on trying it. He tells me that with very little heat the gold strips peel off the boards. That is about as far as he has gotten.

joemac wrote:My uncle is intent on trying it. He tells me that with very little heat the gold strips peel off the boards. That is about as far as he has gotten.

If that is as far as he has gotten, then he has a considerable amount of reading to do. That site that they listed above is an awesome resource. It provided me with enough information to know that this is not something that I want to get into until I have a considerable amount of free time. Such as when my kids move out.

This question comes up routinely in the scrap section.

Refining gold from electronics is a complete waste of time for 99.9%, if not a higher percentage of the popluation. Whether you have a few computers or a few thousand, you're better off selling them for parts or scrap and using the cash to buy bullion, just as you would any other junk or scrap materials you have lying around.

The processes used to refine electronic scrap are complex, expensive, dangerous and highly regulated.

I deal in several tons of electronic scrap weekly and I have a background in chemistry - yet I still don't refine anything myself. This should tell you something.

Can you collect the gold connectors and sell those for scrap? If so, would you get anywhere near melt value? Or is your best bet to find someone who already does gold refining, and supply them with the scrap? I recently threw out about 20 computers at work, and am now wishing I would've grabbed the innards.

I was just at my local gold buyer, seller, refiner, earlier today and he actually had several gold connectors from some high end computers that he had purchased from a guy for their scrap value. So, I would say some parts are worth it, but most, not so much.

I looked into it very seriously more than a year ago. Computers from the early years had lots of PM's in them, but now they are gone. Dr. Cadmium is right. You would need a semi-truck's trailer load of modern electronics to make it worth your while. And you still have to deal with all the dangerous chemicals involved. Then you would have to prove you are not a drug dealer for buying things as simple as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) for crying out loud.

Time to dig out my old $1600 computer from 1993 and see what's in it! That thing was a beast - 4MB of RAM!

Edit: this site claims there's about $9 worth of gold in an old computer: http://therefiningcompany.com/How-Much- ... -A-PC.aspx