I recently pulled a dozen socket 7 era computers out of a flooded basement. Along with a few old window units and a fridge.

Something I never thought about was how much aluminum and copper you can pull out of a computer. So with some snips, a razer knife, a small crowbar, and a mallet I set about to work things loose.

What I found is that heatsinks are damn near pure aluminum, and they come out almost totally clean. I just made 50 bucks on a bucket of them today. I didnt even bring the biggest pieces of aluminum I have. (the radiators I pulled out of the window units)

Also, the cases are all mild steel which isnt worth a whole lot, but it does you more good as money in your pocket than taken space in your moms basement.

As an added bonus you found a reason to leave your mom's basement. Win-win.

Not necessarily. He could've had his mom sell them for him and bring back the money.

thats assuming his mom wouldn't just take the money as rent

I live 600 miles from my parents house. I also dont store my things in the basement, my vintage japanese motorcycle collection is in my fathers garage. Right next to my workbench, where I spent my time from knee high up teaching myself a trade.

My mom prefers to hock things I own for drugs kthx.

Your mom's name is DJ Yoshi?

My mom is too fat to fit on the internet

I actually used to work at an e-scrap warehouse we would do exactly that.

The place I work does that with any test equipment and power supplies we can't fix. Last week we made 6000$ just of scrap gold from circuit boards and connectors. It's fun stuff!

If I could figure out how to get the gold out or where to take the motherboards/printed circuits I'd scrap those too. I have a huge pile going, because I know the materials are worth money I just don't know how to smash it out.

Maybe just hit harder. Smashing is always the right solution.

Don't they just melt the stuff at different temperatures and extract the metals as each one melts?

Blah

Asia has figured this out as well. They have become exceedingly clever about it. Not about their own safety though, which is a shame.

yeah we sell all our boards to some crazy Asian middle man who hordes it and then sells in huge quantities to some mysterious metal reclaimer. if you can look up any metal scrapping/used electronics businesses theres a good chance they could know where to take the circuit boards, but i dont know if they will let out their "trade secrets" these people are usually a miserly type.

Set them on fire. After you die from the fumes, you can collect the gold.

Maybe I could shoot them with my shotgun. You can stand behind them to make sure I dont miss.

Just promise me that if you do raid an asian gold-smelting shop, before you set the fire you should whisper:
"Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes! "