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Well, lesson 1. Scrap is the absolute Lowest value for materials.
Whole working systems shouldn’t be broken down if you are eBaying.
Generally sell dead systems as dead.
Or more specifically, there’s two floating windows of lower value stuff. Places where shipping costs more than you could make in most cases.
The first is late-70s-mid-80s “luggable” computers. These are basically a tower computer with a handle built in.
These all start around 20-some pounds and can quickly go above 50lbs.
Actual portables have a monitor built in, portable workstations do not. You should always open thes up if nothing else. The later they get the less gold they have, but many have gold pin ICs and gold pin processors. Or originally did. The DIP CPUs are the highest thing boardsort pays for.
Even the gold pin gold cap ram and rom chips go as more generic gold cap rates. Verify DOA/Parts only SOLD prices. While many are actually collectible and have premium rates, others will give you more money for a handful of scrap chips than a whole system fetches.
The other dummy era is the a lot processor years. Pentium II/Pentium III/Athlon/Bolt, etc. this trial transition era is notorious for instability. It may work today, not tomorrow, and maybe the next day. Everything was so rushed and experimental and unmonitored that there’s virtually no interest it’s anything beyond specific machines. A parts only/doa rarely gets more than $10-$30. And if your generically offered more on a random i’d cancel the auction. Nobody is going to knowledgeably pay $50+ for a house or boutique white box PII. It’s a scam or an idiot; either way run.
Laptops are a bit different. Excluding Apple and some one-off “firsts”.
Anything at the original Pentium/K5/K6 era and older has retro value.
Anything in the last 2 years and newer has value. Nearly Everything in between is scrap. Is I’ve said elsewhere on the forum, I’d suggest looking into methods for screen testing. (There’s a reason boardsort will pay extra for a dead laptop with a solid non-broken screen).
Working screens can fetch dozens to hundreds alone. Even when the whole dead laptop fetches just $20.
Apple products are all over the place on pricing. But they’re nearly always worth more whole.
Don’t discount peripherals! Keyboards, mice, game pads, and joysticks.
Any mechanical keyboard is worth cash no matter how trashed it is.
Someone will eventually buy it. And I’ve sold old terminal keyboards missing ALL keys and springs for over $20.
Any keyboard (or other external device) that has an RJ connector is worth cash. These are serial controller based devices and are often sought after. RJ jacks/ports look like phone jacks, often smaller or larger.
Gamepads (excluding USB) that are physically in good condition even if they don’t work. Always more as the unit than scrap.
Non-usb joysticks will usually sell eventually for $10-$20+ Old broken FlightStick joysticks, ArcadeStick, etc can get pricy even damaged.
USB joysticks vary. From new is too expensive to hundreds of dollars. Look them up first.
Printers (assuming dead or damaged)
Dot matrix, wheel, type set, and laser are all worth money dead or alive. But are so variable they take a bit of research to decide. Parts from an IBM type set printer (ball printers) can gets hundreds (eg the ball, lift arms, brackets). Where the whole printers alone rarely go beyond $100 due to weight/shipping cost.
Some laser printer parts fetch more than a brand new modern printer does. (Eg Apple, Compaq, HP, IBM).
The one thing never worth the effort is inkjet/bubble jet printers. Most people don’t want them in the first place (I charge to take them). They’re fragile in operation, don’t ship well, are difficult to repair, and messy to repair or scrap.
For modern ink printers I (gently) break loose the the main control board (usually under or near any screen, follow the cables). Salvage and memory or ram chips. And drop the rest in my eShred bin. HP and cannon are the worst with ink tubes running through the machine.
Video cards unless current (last 3-5 years) or very high ram are scrap. With some exceptions for very specialised boards. Stand alone 3D cards, expandable/upgradable. Anything on ISA or EISA. And some AGP cards if they support RGB output.
Chips, tossing them in a bin kills any value for collectors. Who want complete and unbent pins. So your at scrap already there.
As usual I HIGHLY suggest NOT selling chips (or anything else) for gold recovery. Buyers for such auctions are usually a problem.
Cards
Sound cards vary in value but working is usually worth the effort to sell. Especially if they are 5.1+ channels or have a “game port” serial connector.
Disk controllers like SATA or ATA or SCSI can get a few dozen bucks working. SATA and SAS cards can sell untested or dead sometimes.
Most other cards aren’t worth the trouble.
External modems will always make more than scrap whole.
Memory, if it’s current (DDR4+) or older than DDR, it’s got potential untested or dead, and value tested working.
Never scrap EDO memory. Value is market-fixed and doesn’t change much but it’s in short supply.
Did I miss anything?
Oh… tube monitors. Unless it’s RGB, nobody wants it. Quite literally. Not whole, not scrapped, not donated. Find a drop off location.
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