How to sell scrap computer parts
Scrapping computer towers: what parts they have, how to sell, and what parts are worth removing.
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hello scrappers and planet lovers tin
man here with another video so i've
recently received a number of questions
about computer towers and e-waste um are
all computer towers built the same way
with the same components uh does it
matter on size of the computer tower or
age as well where do i sell my e-waste
from electronics and last question that
i want to look at is
what items do i keep or are worth
scrapping taking apart or you know
selling whole so gonna answer a couple
of those questions i know there are a
lot of them i do appreciate the
questions they are um you know i'll try
to answer them as best i can and for
beginner scrappers
you know these are important questions
you want to
uh answer and be addressed to i'm not a
computer expert by any means on part
name so if i name something wrong or a
component to a computer wrong i
apologize but i do love computer towers
as you can see i actually have a small
one here i have more of a modern one and
these two white ones here are actually
from the late 90s some of the circuit
boards they have in them actually have
dates on them so it's obviously easy to
recognize
when they were made
but i am going to very quickly at the
start show you one this is more of a
modern computer tower as you can see
inside of it here is my giant
motherboard i've got a nice cooling fan
underneath that it's gonna have a nice
aluminum heat sink
there's to be another aluminum heatsink
here as well as a couple different boxes
and i love computer towers because they
are almost 100 scrappable for me they
all have a beautiful
outer shell on them that i'm gonna sell
as tin shred and currently right now tin
shred just went back up in ontario um it
is about 16 cents a pound so that's
awesome this one i've already taken
apart you can see and these are heavy
this is a good five pounds right here
this shell so this is going to go into
my tin shred i have had someone actually
commented from the states that said tin
where they are
is actually over a dollar so that is
amazing i would love it to be over a
dollar here that would be incredible but
16 cents a pound again the prices
continue to go up uh which is an
excellent thing for a scrapper as well
as the environment because you are going
to see less things going to the landfill
which is awesome i'm going to actually
start with where can you sell these
items i have seen a lot of people for
example sell parts like this online um
this for example i've seen on kijiji
i've seen on ebay there are a lot of
people that will buy computer parts for
um refurbishing them or rebuilding them
and in order to do that these ones for
example do have to have the cables all
of them intact once i open that computer
shell these are easy to do there's just
uh prongs that you pull out but i have
seen people sell these and this one is
actually from more of a modern computer
tower
um this one i've actually taken there's
two of them here this came out of the
90s style
i have opened one of them up it is very
similar you can see the cables inside
the box is a different color but again
it all depends on the manufacturer um
but the components are the same so i
could try selling this one online
um actually i can't because i've already
cut some of the wire um which is okay
because for me i don't sell these on
ebay or kijiji i will break these down
and i do have one that i'm going to show
you in a second but that is definitely
one option um
these i've seen online as well these
hard drives whatever there is as you can
see gold there um there is a neodymium
magnet inside there is cast aluminum uh
but again a lot of people do sell these
parts online so that is definitely one
option
if you are into selling circuit boards
and chips as well as the different gold
prongs another option online is going to
uh
boardsort.com which is in the united
states uh golden money is in canada um i
have that website up a couple of times
on videos it does break down different
prices um but again i have not actually
sold any of my items online i've been
storing them up and the reason i do that
is because computer towers are an
excellent place to find gold um precious
metals in my opinion uh those items i
will store up uh and collect uh and
hopefully one day either sell it or
refine it myself but that is definitely
an option as well the boardsort.com will
take all different circuit boards um you
have some that for example the long gold
stripped ones that you can sell from
computers or tvs uh boardsort is very
quick to get back to you if with any
questions so they are definitely a good
place to sell unfortunately for me
board sort being an american company and
i am in canada uh shipping costs could
be pricey so you definitely want to
weigh out your options there see what
the best way to ship things are as well
as you know factoring in is it worth the
money for the boards
shipping them
or the cheapest option is actually
bringing them to the scrap yard as i do
and before i do that however i do take
off items um and there are a lot of
great items on these circuit boards as i
said
i always keep my items these are some
crystal oscillators that you will find
in here on these circuit boards i have
gold um as well as mlcc's as well as
different ic chips so gonna go through
some of the items right now um comparing
the different uh computer towers um
i will say in terms of computer towers
uh answering that question about age um
there are some differences but i will
say the main difference is it depends on
manufacturer i have some modern circuit
boards right here that i've taken out of
other ones and as you can see these are
two different colors they have most of
the same components but you will see
different types of heat sinks
if you are lucky you will find a
heatsink like that that has a nice
copper ingot that copper is definitely
worth taking out um but circuit boards
for me in london when i take them to a
scrap yard i definitely take some of the
goodies off to answer that other
question number one that i love to take
off is copper copper for a scrapper is
our scrapper's gold if you will and
circuit boards definitely have a lot of
it as you can see this motherboard here
if you're lucky again there is an ingot
this thing got actually is gonna weigh
about seven ounces um i do have some
different i call them copper donuts but
all of these have different copper
donuts on them as well gonna show you
one of the ones so that tower that i
showed you
this tower i opened it up here you can
see
this is from for from a modern computer
tower but look at that beautiful copper
here
i've got one copper donut two
three
four
i've got a spool of copper right down
there that you can see
right there so that copper i'm gonna
throw that into number two copper i'm
gonna pull it off i have to make sure i
break it out of the metallic casing or
the magnetic casing and i will throw
that into number two copper and
currently number two copper right now in
london ontario is going for four dollars
and forty eight cents a pound great
items they do add up um as you can see
i've got a nice little collection here
of these that i'm going to break open
you do want to make sure you check some
of them do have a casing on them they
can be hard to spot uh this one luckily
had a top to it but you definitely want
to check and again this number two
copper adds up
and i just throw it in a bag i've shown
my number two bag before i've got 52
pounds sitting here just from copper
motors and copper donuts like this
um
and the reason i take this copper off as
well as the aluminum heat sinks for
example is because where i go in
london ontario or my scrap yard they do
not pay me different grade depending on
the types of precious metals or metals
on the circuit board
some states some provinces you do want
to check some will give you grades so
low grade medium grade high grade
depending on what is on it
and high grade bean items like precious
metals so if i was to take for example
this circuit board this circuit board is
going to be high grade because
this has
some gold right here in this ic chip
there's that prong and i do have videos
showing how to take that off there is
some gold in these usb ports as well as
these cables these are all gold plated
prongs
as well i love these things here is
going to be
my nice
chip look at that beautiful chip
as you can see that is gold plated um
but i do want to make sure sorry i'm
going to jump back here these chips the
ones that do not have the prongs
sticking out so i'm going to show you a
couple that i have
these are your different chips that
you're going to find
in these computer towers as well as
these small ones and i'm going to open
that one in a sec but notice the gold
plated prongs there this is a different
style
it has gold plated prongs and this
actually says 1997 this was from
so it says on there this one again gold
plated prongs and i have actually done a
video showing on these ones that i can
remove these gold plated prongs with a
heat gun very easy to do and i will keep
the gold prongs
these ones however you do want to check
online the ones that do not have prongs
i have seen these go for over a hundred
dollars um on
online so again i don't know what
they're
the reason or uh the number but if i
look on the back there is some a little
bit of um we call it a silver
i call it paste but underneath there are
barcodes uh different numbers you do
want to check because some of them are
very valuable so that is definitely
something that you want to check but if
not this is still gold i've seen e-waste
ben for example bring in
pounds and pounds of these and he will
get
priced just from
the weight of these
because there is copper the back there
is copper but that is gold
um so these circuit boards that have
these different chips are going to be
high grade
add a scrap yard if they give you
different categories unfortunately for
me it doesn't matter what's on these if
i bring this into my scrap yard i'm
gonna get one price and it's about eight
to ten cents a pound i have seen some
people in my area say that they go to a
different scrap yard and they get about
26 cents a pound so again you definitely
want to call around do a little bit of
research on your own um but there is
definitely some beautiful gold as well
these aluminum heat sinks different size
so i'm just going to pull the cap off of
this one
again here is two aluminum heat sinks
this one here pulled it off
these are going to be aluminum extrusion
um and i did have someone comment on me
that aluminum extrusion is aluminum
extrusion doesn't matter uh that is
incorrect uh in london ontario depends
on where you are
but in canada here in ontario they
categorize painted and clean so this
extrusion right here is going to be
clean because it is the gray or metallic
look if i was to bring in
a heat sink
oh i had one that was blue a second ago
oh there it is so this one unfortunately
this is painted blue i do have black
ones so these are going to be separated
and it's not by much these are about two
to three cents less so we have painted
and unpainted so again depends on where
you are but where i take mine to you can
even look online zubik's in on london
ontario will show painted and unpainted
so wanted to answer and address that uh
comment as well but beautiful aluminum
extrusion here and this right now is
going for a dollar fifty eight a pound
these aluminum heat sinks are extremely
heavy these two
that i have uh this one i just pulled
out of a subwoofer i actually had two of
them from that
these came out of a subwoofer these are
obviously painted this is 3.9 pounds so
awesome awesome thing that i'm going to
take off definitely worth taking these
parts off of these motherboards because
i'm going to make a lot more money from
those
um as well you do want to check your
transformers these transformers here i
could bring these in for 10 cents a
pound
as is and the nice thing about that
that's going to be more than i'm going
to get for my circuit board
but these two
some of them if you check they have a
beautiful spool of copper
this one i can see doesn't have a lot of
copper spooling there's a lot of paper
but if it had a lot of copper definitely
worth taking out that copper
okay
going to the 90s style again there were
a couple different circuit boards this
was my motherboard and this one it did
not have actually aluminum or a an ic
chip in there or one of those big chips
it had actually a different style like
this
which was really interesting this board
there are parts on here that i can sell
uh separately
these ic chips very easy to pull off so
i'm actually going to take these off i
put them into a container and all i
actually do is take a knife and i will
just peel across the prongs and then
pull that off but these bigger ones for
sure these two i have seen some
motherboards that are actually these are
gold um and i've seen them on golden
money they are a different different
category different price unfortunately
these are not gold
uh here this board i could sell as is
again but there is definitely here a
couple goodies that i do take off um
this is some gold
prong or gold plated um prongs here if
you will or uh part of a board um board
source will take all of this golden
money will take for example these pieces
but you have to be really close to the
gold you have to get as close as you can
it can't be more than a mil two
millimeters of plastic but as well you
can see if i turn this look at those
gold-plated prongs i will definitely
take these off i just hit them from the
back with a heat gun i will make them
fall off
and i will put them into a small
container
build up my
gold if you will storage so beautiful
gold there but this came out of the 90s
style
and it doesn't mean that all the 90s
have this some of them do have your big
aluminum heatsink
and some of them
again depending on the maker and brand
um some of the components are the same
as well here is my different connector
the different usb
uh or sorry these are going to have your
floppy disk ports look at that beautiful
gold connector on that one um this one
my drive here
i haven't opened it yet but if i turn it
there you can see just like a modern one
you've got some gold plated prongs there
um
this one again this does have cast
aluminum on it
but i am going to just for myself i
always take the gold pins off i'll just
open this circuit board with a
screwdriver i think there's a couple
different
pro
screws on here the screws i'm going to
put into
my
screw bin get the tin on that but again
all computer towers have an amazing
hoard of gold
the gold pins in my opinion are
definitely worth
taking apart for me being that i don't
get much look at that there is some
beautiful gold plated pins these again i
just heat up they will i will store them
here is an outer casing of cast aluminum
um
showing you a couple different chips
circuit boards
and as you can see i will mention too
with these circuit boards these do have
mlcc's these orange things here i have
done a little bit of research on mlcc's
you will find them on modern day circuit
boards but one thing i find on the older
models as well as your old crt tvs um
and this is a rule that i've
heard i don't know if it's exactly true
but the rule was if you're mlc sees and
i just dropped a couple unfortunately if
your mlcc's are
non-magnetic then they are
the ones that have palladium in them so
this one for example you can see a tiny
mlcc here if i take a magnet
here's my magnet it does not stick
okay so apparently these ones you
definitely want to separate because
these are going to have your palladium
all your mlcc's
um again some of the modern ones putting
a magnet to them
are going to have a magnetic attraction
these ones again do not and there are
larger ones so i do sort them um and
i do see people selling these online
um to different uh people refineries
i've seen some people actually do
youtube videos actually refining them
themselves i don't i don't want to
really crush them up but i will sell
them just like my crystal oscillators
i do sell these as well online or i can
you can see there is a nice stack
and circuit boards definitely have these
on them
if i take this up to the camera again
i'm gonna look
uh there's one right there there's a
crystal oscillator some of them there's
another one there's another one there's
three of them there
uh some of them have three some have
four some have the larger oh one two
three four there's four one two three
and four so you definitely want to look
but the gold i definitely take off as
well i have seen people sell online the
ram sticks okay so here some of the
motherboards will have them some people
will actually open up the cover and take
them out but i have seen these being
sold online as well uh depending on the
memory on these these are
what do i got here
five or f i don't know doesn't say
should usually it'll say one gig or two
these ones i don't think have much on
them it says 512 mb
doesn't see a g on there so they might
be lower value but again these do have
the gold plated i have seen these being
sold online um to boardsort.com or buy
them or people that are building or
rebuilding computers
okay so again some more styles the
mlcc's
uh i often find obviously the modern
ones here my usb ports i love these
because as you can see
look at that beautiful prongs here
okay
the older style again not many people
have the older styles so not going to
spend too much time looking at it but
here again is some more
of your um
gold plated fingers there's some ports
right here if i pull that switch out
there's some more gold i'm gonna take
out
uh as well as your this is just gonna be
a floppy disk port or
something this oh cd drive on this one
um the cd drives are built the same
i will take off the gold as well when i
open it you can see
there is a brass um
that's got a motor this brass connector
i do take that brass and put it into my
yellow brass the rest of this once i
remove that and the small copper motor
which is right there there's another one
here i will put those into my copper
bearing motors for 10 cents a pound but
an interesting thing you do want to
check is the ribbon uh for the eye here
if i pull that ribbon
i'm gonna pull it right now if i can get
it out
pull it this one you can see
is a gold color it adds gold plated so
that means this port
is going to have gold in it i will cut
that off and put it into my gold pile
there's a little bit of gold in there as
well as this ribbon i do cut the top of
that that is gold-plated ribbon so i
will put that into that as well and the
rest of the casing
and the rest of this photo eye stuff i
will just throw this into my e-waste and
this into my tin
which is awesome
but the last question asking are the
smaller ones built the same
um
i will say mostly yes
there again is my heat sinks from this
is the older model these are painted
black so i gotta make sure that i
separate them but you still have your
copper doughnut there this one just has
a warning danger high voltage these are
aluminum capacitors i don't take these
off they're not worth separating but
this one you can see does have a small
copper winded transformers so this one i
do break open and i will take the copper
out of that because it's worth it for
sure
but the last question here's my smaller
computer tower gonna open it just remove
the plastic
and this one because i'm scrapping it
not selling it
i am just going to remove right now
the different prongs just going to cut
them off
i do these pieces i will put these into
low grade wire but the back bottom here
i will open this up because there is
if i open it there you go there is some
gold prongs that i do cut out and i will
put into my gold
the wire here the rest of this wire you
do want to check
i'm opening it
if you cut this open and you see a
metallic look which i see here this is
because these wires are aluminum wires
they're not copper so you definitely
don't want to put this into your copper
wire
we have 40 and 60
this because it's aluminum this goes
into low grade wire um which is going
for about 90 cents a pound canadian if
this was copper this would be going into
my 60 copper recovery because it only
has one coating of plastic on it and
they look at plastic to copper ratio and
uh copper recovery so the rule one layer
of plastic higher value but again don't
put this into your copper because they
will downgrade you
okay you have right here your
motherboard if you will i'm gonna just
cut this open i'm gonna open this up
just by cutting
it just going to pull it there is look
at that aluminum heat sink here
underneath this this is beautiful i got
to remove the screws but
look at the copper shell here you can
see the copper
i do have one somewhere but i will open
this
in a little bit another video oh here's
one
oh sorry so as you can see here is
another one look at the nice copper here
this copper is going to be
number
once i get it out of there number one
copper um it is uh definitely going to
be worth more than my number two
as well the rest of this i could
actually throw this into my aluminum
copper radiator pile uh radiators that
you get for example dehumidifiers and
get i think two dollars and forty cents
a pound um
i find it very difficult to separate it
all because they are intertwined and i
do have to do some cutting on that but
definitely want to get my number uh one
copper there uh as well but that is
awesome here there's some copper in this
one
here again are some more of my wires
there is my
big gold chip we'll see what kind it is
it's just going to be
lift the lip here we go this is my like
revealing party if you will
there you go
that is so this has no
gold prong sticking up so again i want
to make sure i look at the back of that
this could be my 100 chip i don't know
and i have not sold any yet i've just
seen them online uh people saying that
that's what they're worth because again
i don't know why but that'd be awesome
um but the other thing too is i do cut
out this is also gold here i will cut
that out um i have another chip here
these chips i will take here's another
aluminum heatsink underneath these
aluminum heatsinks there's going to be
another chip like this so i do take
those off they are worth money i see a
couple memory sticks here
here's some ram
open that up
i got two of these and i will pull the
rest out but here again
so this one there you go
there's another chip here or ram stick
these are sold as well there's two of
them in here i can see but
very similar okay this one again has
different
circuit boards that i have to take out
that are gonna have gold prongs on them
okay so i know that was a lot i feel
like the roadrunner there blabbing but
uh good questions a lot of questions um
depends on the
maker or where they're made again i've
got a dell here i have a tct storm i
have a hewitt um here is a
another this is the intel
um i think this is the dell as well yes
it is um i've got a couple over there
that are uh acer
so again depends on the maker what they
have on it a lot of them will definitely
have the same similar components
but
again a great source of scrappable
material you definitely have to find out
where depending on where you live what
is the best option on how to sell but
again in my opinion where i live it is
the best option to take off the copper
and the gold and salvage as much as i
can before i bring the circuit boards
into the scrap yard because i'm going to
make more money separating those items
than bringing in the board whole
and again copper
gold
crystal oscillators a lot of great
things on here and a great item to find
and the best thing obviously is as well
is almost 100 scrappable so hopefully
that answered a couple questions please
continue asking away i will do my best
to answer those questions um
love you know the feedback and the
scrapping community
and again great time to be scrapping
with high high prices i hope you enjoyed
the video please comment down below like
share subscribe and i'll catch you on
the next one tin man out
