Is there gold in them thar hills?

Gold has climbed up to over $1,100 per ounce. I am getting ready to throw out or recycle an old Dell laptop computer.

I was wondering though, is there any appreciable amount of gold in the circuitry that I could remove first? In one or two easy to get at locations, as opposed to spread out throughout the computer in miniscule amounts in all the filaments and circuits and whatnot.

Thanks!

 

Gold can be added to a computer but very unlikely. You are more likely to have lead, silicone, and other metals in that laptop. However, I would suggest donating it to a school or charity before giving it to a recycling plant.

 

I've recently read that medical researchers are using materials from recycled LED flat-screens to aid their work with cancer research - don't know if this applies to laptop panels, but it might be worth a look...

Agreed with da.bell: some circuit board lands and connectors are gold plated, but the total amount would be miniscule, and the time/trouble expended would probably be a waste...

 

I was just thinking, with the price of gold being very high and the price of computers very low, from a historical perspective, I can't image the computer makers using much gold in the manufacture of computers nowadays. If they were, we'd be paying more for computers.

 

Hi All,

The gold you are talking about is mostly on the connectors. For better contact they have a very thin, about 1/2 micron if I remember correctly, plating of gold. Very good reason not to use a pencil eraser to clean them. Rubs it off. Many years ago my board repair center sliced off all the contact fingers from the scrap boards and saved them in 55 gallon oil drums. Some outfit came by occasionally and bought the barrels from us. They recovered the gold. Don't remember what value there was.

Jim