Boards · Tier B

Laptop motherboards

Thin, dense, many BGAs, gold-flashed shield contacts, board-to-board connectors. Per pound they beat desktop boards; per board they're small.

Au 0.20–0.50 g/lbAg 1–3 g/lbPd 0.02–0.08 g/lbCu 15–25%

eBay typical$10–18per lb

Refiner pays$7.75per lb

Metal in it$15.3per lb at 4 Aug 2026 spot

Confidencemedof the yield figures

How to spot it

A typical 150–250 g laptop board holds 0.03–0.08 g of gold.

Metal content

Metal	Quantity	Notes
Gold	0.20–0.50 g/lb	richer per pound than desktop — thin, dense, many BGAs
Silver	1–3 g/lb
Palladium	0.02–0.08 g/lb
Copper	15–25%

At 4 Aug 2026 spot prices that works out to $15.3 per pound of contained metal — Gold 0.08 g = $10.4, Silver 1.3 g = $2.47, Palladium 0.035 g = $1.44, Copper 90 g = $0.96. A refiner paying $7.75 returns about 51% of that, which is normal: refining costs money and the buyer takes a margin.

Safe removal

Remove the CMOS battery and any attached lithium cell first. Pull the WiFi/M.2 cards — fingered laptop WiFi cards grade at $11/lb on their own.

Hazards

🔥 Lithium battery fire

A standard ABC extinguisher will NOT stop a runaway lithium cell. Don't count on one.

☠ Lead — dust more than fume

NEVER dry sweep or use compressed air on a scrapping bench. HEPA-vac or wet-wipe only.

Before you scrap it

A working board for a common ThinkPad or Latitude is $40–120 versus about $5 as scrap.

The common trap

Quoted per-board figures of 0.2–0.5 g are roughly 3–6× too high — that's a correct per-pound number mislabelled per board. This unit confusion is the single most common costing error in the trade.

Questions

How much gold is in laptop motherboards?

Gold: 0.20–0.50 g/lb. Silver: 1–3 g/lb. Palladium: 0.02–0.08 g/lb. Copper: 15–25%. At current spot that is about $15.3 of contained metal per pound.

How do you identify laptop motherboards?

Thin, dense, many BGAs, gold-flashed shield contacts, board-to-board connectors. Per pound they beat desktop boards; per board they're small.

How do you remove laptop motherboards safely?

Remove the CMOS battery and any attached lithium cell first. Pull the WiFi/M.2 cards — fingered laptop WiFi cards grade at $11/lb on their own.

Is laptop motherboards worth more working than as scrap?

A working board for a common ThinkPad or Latitude is $40–120 versus about $5 as scrap.

Related in Boards

Cell phone boards Boards · $25–40/lb Au 0.09–0.50 g/lbAg 0.23–1.26 g/lbPd 0.025–0.07 g/lbCu 12–56% A Telecom / military boards Boards · $11–35/lb Au 0.3–4 g/lbAg 1–8 g/lbPd 0.02–0.3 g/lbCu 15–25% A Telecom backplanes Boards · $10–18/lb Au 1–3 g/lb wholeAg 0.5–2 g/lbCu 20–30% A Server motherboards Boards · $9–16/lb Au 0.05–0.3 g/lbAg 1–3 g/lbPd 0.02–0.10 g/lbCu 15–25% B Wire-wrap / pin boards Boards · $20–35/lb Au 0.6–1.5 g/lbAg 0.5–2 g/lbCu 20–30% B Arcade PCBs / JAMMA Boards Boards · $30–800/lb Au 0.05–0.20 g per board ≈ 0.09 g/lbCu ~45 g/lbAu ceramic gold-lid customs (FD1094 C

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