Computer parts Breakdown and identification

Ok here goes my attempt at sorting out all the different types of computer parts and what they are commonly called.

Lets start with the inside look of the whole computer.

As you can see there is alot going on in there.
Top left of picture is 2 dvd/cdrom drives and a 3.5 inch drive
Bottom left is the power supply
Bottom right is the motherboard and everything attached to it.
Top right is the hard drive.
On the motherboard
Top left in the black slots you will see a ram stick.
Middle left you will see a fan. Under that fan is the heatsink and CPU
Bottom right you will see 2 PCI/AGP/FINGER Cards sticking up vertical from the motherboard.

Now lets get a closer look at all the different parts out of the case.
Lets start with different motherboards.



This is a motherboard from a server.


These are motherboards from home computers.


You will notice they do look different. Most home computer motherboards will have square on them where the CPU plugs in where as a server board will usualy have slots card style CPU's or square mounted CPU's on riser cards.

Also home computer motherboards will usually have 2 to 4 ram slots. Servers have alot more. If you look at the server motherboard all the white slots on the left side are for ram. This server board has room for 18 sticks of ram. That would be about a full pound if they were all full.

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In this picture you can see the different types of RAM chips.
Top to bottom are
Laptop/Printer style ram
Oldschool 386/486 EDO RAM Silver or Gold Fingered
Newer style ddr/ddr2/ddr3 RAM
Server Ram
Here is a picture of what most people call rambus. You will notice its just like a regualr RAM chip just cased in metal. Some of these are very easly removed. They use to sell heatsinks you could slip over your ram.

This is a 5.25 inch floppy drive. I would put these on ebay and sell them instead of scrapping them. But if you want to scrap them you can take the board off of these just like you would a cd/dvd drive.


This is a 3.5/5.25 combo floppy drive. DO NOT SCRAP THESE. Sell them on ebay. I just sold this one for $20 with free shipping on ebay untested. So after shipipng and fees I still made about $12.

OK these next three pics show me taking apart acd/dvd rom drive just to get the board out. It took me a whole minute to do it and take all 3 pics. These boards fetch motherboard price if im not mistakin. Back panel was held on by 4 screws and then lifts right off. Then board just held in by plastic clamps and it to lifts right out. If you get DVDRW drives dont scrap them either. I sell them for $15 on ebay and $20 for the lightscribe ones.





This is a pic of all diferent kinds of EPROMS/IC CHIPS/FLATBACKS. They all sell for same price.


This is called ribbon cable. Cut the black parts off this is where all the gold plated pins are. When cut from copper wires throw them in a bucket with your connector ends from other cables like monitor and printer cables. Shown below.



This is power supply. Personaly I just cut the wires off and throw the rest in my shred. Some yards will pay low copper breakage for them too. All depends on yard. Some yards even have there own prices for them.


These are 3.5 inch hard drives. There are older 5.25 inch hard drives and 2.5 inch you will find in laptops. They pretty much all look the same. Pull the baords off and sell them seperate. They usualy go for 2 times the motherboard rate or better depending on buyer. the back plate is usualy Stainless and the rest of the drive body is cast alluminum. The boards are usualy only held on with a couple screws and come off real easy.

Well thats it I hope this helps you all and if I missed anything let me know and ill add it to this post with an edit.

Saving this spot for updates since there is a 10 picture max per post.

Great info and nice stock pile there PTS.

If you end up with quite a few ribbon cables, just find an old paper cutter from an office or school and it'll shear the end connectors off real slick like.

Awesome post!

Over here I get electric motor price for my power supplies (about 45 - 50c per KG, or like 20 - 22cents per lb)


WOW gold connectors on ribbon cable...didn't know that, have moved 100s of lbs of these cables recently..Oh well, live and learn.

I only pull the ones that can come off without tearing up the board

I pull the one's that are on a socket and unplug only, anything more than that and your downgrading.

WOW gold connectors on ribbon cable...didn't know that, have moved 100s of lbs of these cables recently..Oh well, live and learn.

Torker, that one has been posted a few times with pic's also.