To pull the laptop Mother board or scrap the incomplete laptop?

[CapitalRecovery]

Should I pull the laptop motherboard, or should I scrap the incomplete laptop?
I always pull the RAM, battery, and pry out the CPU (with out taking it all a part.)
I normally pull the mother board too because of shipping cost, but has anyone crunched the numbers?

[jimicrk]

I get only 20 or 30 laptops in a year and I do take them apart.

[miked]

I normally dismantle really non working laptops. But like most of these questions it has to fit into your situation. I am currently down on volume, voluntarily, so storing laptop motherboards is easier and takes up less room. This works for me.

Here's my special pet name for laptops "Just one more D#!N screw". It takes a lot of effort to break down laptops and some of our buyers do have attractive prices. 73, Mike

[sledge]

You make FAR more if you dismantle.
Some people hate them to tear down.
But if you have all the right bits, a great drill etc.
You can make a killing tearing them apart:
RAM- Resell-able generally
Mother Board= $
Screen- if not gouged or cracked can net you $3 each- that's if you don't ebay them (which is far more)
Battery- paying like $1.50/lb
A lot of laptops are aluminum based in many parts- .30/lb
You get a CPU fiber chip and may luck out and get a desirable chip you can resell.
Working and decent sized hard drive has value
The list goes on and on....

[CapitalRecovery]

Do you guys ever not find that last screw and just say to hell with this, get both gloves on and rip the laptop completely in two?
Not screen and keyboard but top and bottom of keyboard
Sorry, Ewasted for the broken MOB...

[bnawa38]

If you get a lot of laptops it is better to sell your laptops as incomplete. You get roughly 1.00 a lb for incomplete 14.75 for the memory you pulled from the laptops 1.75 for the Lith-ion Batteries and 6.00 lb for the processors. Most laptops after you harvest some of the goodies is still 5-6 lbs = 5.00-6.00 for only a minute or two of your time to take out the goodies that are quick to get. Now we all know it takes time to break down the laptop to get the mother board and than the screen it is wasted time you could be breaking down other items that you can generate good money on.I just sold 800 lbs of incomplete laptops at 1.00 a Lb this was about 160 laptops it would have taken me a good week maybe two to break these down and harvest all parts. In one 8 hour day this is what I made 800.00 for the incomplete laptops weight @ 1.00 lb I had 95 lbs of lith-ion batteries @1.75 lb = 166.25 8lbs memory @ 14.75 Lb = 118.00 totaling 1084.25 Now I saved myself a week or two of time that I broke down even more ewaste.. This is just my opion on what works for me! Good luck at what ever you decide! Forgot to add it was only 119.22 for my freight shipping

[lousypirate]

I never get them in volume, and end up doing what bnawa does. Not worth the time IMO. YMMV.

[mikeinreco]

If you get a lot of laptops it is better to sell your laptops as incomplete. You get roughly 1.00 a lb for incomplete 14.75 for the memory you pulled from the laptops 1.75 for the Lith-ion Batteries and 6.00 lb for the processors. Most laptops after you harvest some of the goodies is still 5-6 lbs = 5.00-6.00 for only a minute or two of your time to take out the goodies that are quick to get. Now we all know it takes time to break down the laptop to get the mother board and than the screen it is wasted time you could be breaking down other items that you can generate good money on.I just sold 800 lbs of incomplete laptops at 1.00 a Lb this was about 160 laptops it would have taken me a good week maybe two to break these down and harvest all parts. In one 8 hour day this is what I made 800.00 for the incomplete laptops weight @ 1.00 lb I had 95 lbs of lith-ion batteries @1.75 lb = 166.25 8lbs memory @ 14.75 Lb = 118.00 totaling 1084.25 Now I saved myself a week or two of time that I broke down even more ewaste.. This is just my opion on what works for me! Good luck at what ever you decide! Forgot to add it was only 119.22 for my freight shipping

If someone gifted you 800lbs of laptops CONGRATS.......Please give more insight about how you steadily acquire such a large flow of material

[Flinthills]

If you get a lot of laptops it is better to sell your laptops as incomplete. You get roughly 1.00 a lb for incomplete 14.75 for the memory you pulled from the laptops 1.75 for the Lith-ion Batteries and 6.00 lb for the processors. Most laptops after you harvest some of the goodies is still 5-6 lbs = 5.00-6.00 for only a minute or two of your time to take out the goodies that are quick to get. Now we all know it takes time to break down the laptop to get the mother board and than the screen it is wasted time you could be breaking down other items that you can generate good money on.I just sold 800 lbs of incomplete laptops at 1.00 a Lb this was about 160 laptops it would have taken me a good week maybe two to break these down and harvest all parts. In one 8 hour day this is what I made 800.00 for the incomplete laptops weight @ 1.00 lb I had 95 lbs of lith-ion batteries @1.75 lb = 166.25 8lbs memory @ 14.75 Lb = 118.00 totaling 1084.25 Now I saved myself a week or two of time that I broke down even more ewaste.. This is just my opion on what works for me! Good luck at what ever you decide! Forgot to add it was only 119.22 for my freight shipping

Assuming that every stick of RAM pulled was the heaviest type(double row of chips on both sides) and further assuming that you were pulling two sticks of RAM per laptop, that only gets you 6.1 lbs of RAM. You must've had well over 200 laptops to harvest 8 lbs. of RAM.
Also, neither of those assumptions is likely to hold up over a large number of laptops.
Personally, I just pull the RAM, battery and HDD (due to sensitive nature of data) and then sell as complete laptop.

[Swampy]

I've acquired probably 75 to 100 laptops, some complete, most incomplete. I'm debating how to handle them.

[HipoGear]

I've acquired probably 75 to 100 laptops, some complete, most incomplete. I'm debating how to handle them.

I would completely dismantle a couple of them and then decide what is best for you. There may be a slight $ advantage of one way over the other. But only you can determine what your time is worth.
The fact that you can be paid for a complete laptop without leaving the RAM, HDD, and battery is a huge profit factor.

[miked]

I would completely dismantle a couple of them and then decide what is best for you. There may be a slight $ advantage of one way over the other. But only you can determine what your time is worth.
The fact that you can be paid for a complete laptop without leaving the RAM, HDD, and battery is a huge profit factor.

I can not agree more. What's best for you is up to you. Mike

[Swampy]

Knowing that they are still considered "complete" even with battery, hard drive, and memory pulled definitely helps with the decision.

[Sirscrapalot]

My special pet name for laptops is unprintable here unless you like reading paragraphs like this...."#$@(*&$* laptop !@#$$#@@#! laptop! %^#*#((!!! Arrgh! Screw this I'm getting the Sledge hammer."



I highly dislike laptops.

Sirscrapalot - Laptops are the enemy. Destroy them all! DELETE DELETE DELETE! - I'd tell you but you wouldn't know who he was.

[mthomasdev]

Knowing that they are still considered "complete" even with battery, hard drive, and memory pulled definitely helps with the decision.

Check with your buyer. They all vary on what is complete.

[CapitalRecovery]

I was also thinking about cutting our the CPU with my Dremmel, and harvesting the easy stuff like the Bat.,RAM, Hard drive.

[miked]

I was also thinking about cutting our the CPU with my Dremmel, and harvesting the easy stuff like the Bat.,RAM, Hard drive.

My thought is if you are going to this much effort just break them down completely. After taking the ram, cpu, battery, hard drive why would anyone pay a premium for what is left over?

I'm a little unsure how using a dremmel tool would make getting the cpu out quicker. With the current scrap valueof laptop cpu's its nearly not worth the effort to remove them from the motherboard.

I'm not serious but I did just weigh up 6 0z. of laptop cpu's and it took 31 to make that weight. Math time: 6oz/16oz = 37.5% $12/lb x .375(37.5%) = $4.50/ 31 cpu's = 14.5 cents each. I'm not suggesting you don't pull them just consider the value of your time. I am a firm believer in doing it yourself and deciding what is the best course of action.

My model will differ from yours, I choose to take what would be pennies in scrap, test it and sell it for dollars. Because of this I tend to fully break down my laptops. We all need to find our niche. 73, Mike

[aurum]

I only pull re-useable parts from laptops, the rest is sold as either complete or incomplete. My buyer accepts as complete without batteries or hard drives.
Occasionally I pull one RAM (if there is two), and the batteries for scrap, as it only takes a few seconds. I get relatively a lot of laptops, get about 800-1000 pieces per year.
Not worth my time to break any down. I like them, make good money on them both scrap and re-useable parts.