Value of a P3 or P4 board w/ north bridge removed?

[foamnone]

I have been playing around with the idea of recovering pm's from the n/s bridge chip I pulled from some motherboards. I needed 2 lbs of these chips to run my test. I am ignorant. I pulled "The only good chip" off the entire board (scale guy) Now its worthless.

So, board prices change from scale to scale or buyer to buyer. I want to use a standard, for example: Can someone explain to me how much value is lost from the board or what a reasonable deduction would be for removing the n/s bridge from a mother board.

If you say it depends on the buyer, you are not the one that I need to answer this question.

[AuburnEwaste]

I don't want to come off like a jerk, but dude it DOES depend on your buyer. The only way to get an exact price is to get it from the person you are actually going to sell it to.

[Scrappah]

There are different grades of green board. It might be "worthless" to someone who only buys complete motherboards. It might have value to someone who buys lower grade boards.

You might check out the buyers section here and make a few inquiries.

[foamnone]

Rather than highjacking a sellers thread I decided to ask in open forum with the hopes a buyer would reply with today I would pay $2.XX a pound for a P2 board whole or would deduct $0.XX a lbs if you pulled of the n/s bridge chip.

With the deduction I received I believe I could have bought 1 lbs off flea bay, paid shipping and come out ahead.

[ryanw]

I'm just shooting out an educated guess here, but I would reduce what I would pay for the p4 boards by 1/2 and the P3 boards by 1/3.

[armygreywolf]

You cut the value by at least 30% on the large socket boards. Early NB BGAs are quite valuable and thats why the large socket boards are worth so much, that and the socket's silver solder. Keep in mind it's not the chip value it's the cost to refine a board versus the return, so if you devalue a board you cut the margins disproportionately. For instance, if the COST is $1.00 per lb and the paying price is 3.00 lb making real board value 4.00 lb, by devaluing it 30% you've actually devalued it more like 45% because now the board is much closer to the refining margin.

[ScrappinRed]

Your buyer's opinion is the only answer that matters in this instance. Most buyer's on here are incredibly busy and don't surf through all the posts looking for business. No need to hijack a buyer's thread, just pick a buyer of your choice and email them a photo. That way you have an exact, real-time quote for your product...

[Scrap Master J]

So, my location dictates a different processing method than the "norm". While not answering the op question directly, maybe my situation will give some direction to this problem.

For me, the price paid for small socket motherboards is almost identical to the price per pound I pay to ship to a buyer. So why do labor for no profit? Removing chips with known pm content without dealing with the board itself leads to a concentration that is profitable.

I understand that many are better off going for total weight with minimum labor, however in my case that equals no profit. Ewaste is a numbers game, but you need to know all your numbers to win (profit). And as always, the older stuff contains more oz's of .......... per ton (?). Make your decisions based on your numbers, not others opinions. It takes work, experiments, samples, test lots, etc, based on your location, supply situation, overhead and whatever to make a profit. It doesn't matter what others do, determine what it takes for you to profit and proceed accordingly.

[foamnone]

Thank you for the responses.

This is a hobby and I am looking at how to minimize the cost of this endeavor. I pay a little for some of the scrap I play with. The boards came from Satellite boxes, controllers, cash registers and computer towers. I was able to sell the devalued boards and the steel to pay for the purchase. I still have the ram, hard drives, cd/floppy drive, power supply, wire, alum, finger cards, and processors.

The sell prices paid: ( I removed, excess alum/steel, plastic, battery and 1 flatpack BGA or n/s bridge per board)

colored board $0.80
Mother Board 1.15
Med Grade Board $0.60
P4 Board $0.80

The idea of asking the original question was to get the numbers to see if it made sense to ship devalued boards in 50 lbs lots vs selling locally. Armygreywolf answered that question, thank you.

[armygreywolf]

If your going to try refinining on your own I can tell you this: start with trimmed gold fingers. At least then the ram and finger cards still have value beyond shipping costs. I would not do chips on your own unless you have the ability to grind the chips down to powder form. My refiner basically told me the numbers they get are based on processing the powder rather than dealing with chemically stripping ceramic chip just to refine it. They still use chemicals so far as I know but the powder is refined all at once, where once the process starts the "sludge" ceramic stuff is skimmed off and tossed. The rest are heavy metals and my understanding as compared to refining chips at home their recovery is 98-99.5% of content. I got to see what happens in person, ingenious process but not a cheap setup at any level.