How much is a complete computer tower (motherboard, ram, processor, etc) worth?

Originally Posted by mrsamsonite

Thanks for taking the time to look these links up. From what I got from the links I can buy them for about $2-$6 and sell them after break down for $10-15

I went ahead and broke down a computer and scaled it up using the prices from Ewasted. Here is what I got:



DVD Drive........................................1.75l bs. @.22 = $.39
HD................................................ .1.25lbs. @1.10=$1.28
Ram.............................................. .05lbs. @14.30=$1.43
Processor...................................... .05lbs. @ $34 =$1.70
Mother Board................................. 1.30lbs.@3.60=$4.68
Case............................................ 8.85lbs.@ .08=$.71
Power Supply............................................ .........=$1

Total............................................. ..................$10.29

So, my numbers matched up pretty good with the numbers from the others. I always like to see the breakdown of things.

This is an extremely interesting and helpful post. I believe your numbers are sound but as Recyclotrops points out there are a few other components that have value unaccounted for. Let's assume, then, that the total is $12, not 10.29 (just to keep the numbers round). So, that leaves you with a $7 profit per unit if you pay $5 for each tower.

If one were to try to make $50k per year from this endeavor, based on these numbers, you would need to acquire and process slightly more than 7,000 computer towers a year. You would pay approx. $35,000 for the units. After breaking them down--at a rate of nearly 20 per day/365 days per year--your efforts would produce a gross of approx. $84k and your net profit would be approx. $49k.

Based on these numbers, even supposing it were possible to find 7,000 computers per year at $5 each, there is no way you could keep up the pace of acquisition, disassembly, and packing/shipping to make this work unless you were a very, very driven fellow. This doesn't even take into account the tax bill and other overhead inherent in such an operation.

I've been doing a lot of research into this field. I've come to the conclusion that this could never be anything other than a hobby. It doesn't appear to be a viable business. But I do find it relaxing and interesting to tinker with old computers, and, if you do too, than I think as a hobby it can pay for itself as long as you don't see your time spent on it as a labor.

[

I would have to disagree that it is just a hobby......For me it allows me to have enough money to do what I please and pretty much whatever I want to do as long as I work at it at least 40 hours a week......I can't think of any other manual labor job that allows me the freedom as well as the pay that e-scrap does.........oh well just my .02 cents worth for what little it is worth

]