# Value of metals in a laptop?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-metals-in-a-laptop/654022>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 26, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-metals-in-a-laptop/654022 "2013-03-26T17:28:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-metals-in-a-laptop/654022/1 "2013-03-26T17:28:07Z")

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I have a badly damaged old laptop sitting in my house. I have absolutely no use for it and I have tried selling it but nobody wants it. I understand that electronics contain valuable metals such as copper, gold, and silver. If I took it apart and brought these metals to a scrapyard how much would I get?

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**Author:** ![DadWagonDriver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/edb3f5/32.png) [@DadWagonDriver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DadWagonDriver)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-metals-in-a-laptop/654022/2 "2013-03-26T17:36:39Z")

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I work for a company that handles this. Our recyclers give us about $5 for scrap laptops.

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**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-metals-in-a-laptop/654022/3 "2013-03-26T17:44:24Z")

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Aside from copper, the amount of gold and silver is insignificant, on the order of a few cents; you can see how much gold 15-20 motherboards has [here](http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/550-gold-motherboard-chemistry.html) (see last picture; a gold BB about 1.5 mm in diameter). Even for copper, you probably won’t get more than a dollar or two. A lot of the costs of electronics like computers is in manufacturing the chips (purifying the silicon, designing masks to define the circuitry, which can be millions apiece, etching and diffusing layers, which requires multibillion dollar facilities), not the raw materials used to make them or other parts.

If you want to try to make some real money, try selling the individual components, such as the CPU, memory, video card, etc; even for an older laptop there are probably people who would buy them.

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**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-metals-in-a-laptop/654022/4 "2013-03-26T17:48:01Z")

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Assuming the OP is in the USA:

[http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/materials/ecycling/donate.htm](http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/materials/ecycling/donate.htm)