About 200 Ant Miner units followed me home today, just begging for me to give them some attention. Some of them may be functional, while some are obviously burned out with the task of digging up non-existent coins. If they wore collars, one could claim they got hot under the collar but I think it was just job burnout.
One pallet with about 60 whole units had 30 loose hashboards already removed. These boards have about 60 small aluminum fins heat sinks on each side of the board. Underneath the heat sink is a tiny chip. The problem arises when one attempts to remove the heat sink, as it is firmly glued to the chip, which is attached to the board. Sometimes the chip splits and part of it remains attached to the board, showing the tiny precious metal traces, or totally detaches and remains on the removed heat sink, while other times the heat sink pops off clean with damaging the chip. DDDoes anyone know a trick to easily remove the heat sink without damaging the chips?
A topic on the antminer hashboard was posted previously a couple years ago, and one reply said if the heatsinks were not removed, it would be a mid grade board, another person said it would be peripheral low grade with the sinks removed. I asked Chris a few months ago, without specifying the 120 heat sinks, but don't remember what he said. I am having trouble geting a photo loaded to OSCAR.

If the final destination is just scrap then as long as the chips are there it doesn't matter if they're damaged. Experiment with one, try a flat head screwdriver or similar tool to get between the board and heatsink to pry it off. If that doesn't work, try applying a little heat to the heatsinks and try the previous method again. Increase the amount of heat if that still doesn't work.
I use a small propane torch normally to do this.

There have been other suggestions for ceramic chips but I'm not sure boiling fiber boards would work

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Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

I finally got two more photos upload showing one side clean pops and other side damage, just prying, no heat . I dont think the total weight of all 120 sinks would be more than an ounce or two on the one pound board

Finally got a couple pics loaded onto OSCAR. I gave him four tries with the same board, just different angles and sections. He first declared it definitely high telecom, but with large heat sinks so only graded as Low telecom. Next try, still a telecom but no huge heat sinks, just lots of them. Next go, he thought it was a cryptocurrency mining board, even guessed Antminer, but said it was a goldfinger card (my fingers were holding the board) but unfortunately it had a huge cooling fan and heat sinks, so would only go as a GFC with oversize fan and heatsink. I may insist when I get my load delivered in person, I may demand OSCAR do the grading. LOL. Years ago, a new scrapyard opened near me, and I took a cast iron bathdtub across the scales. 300 pounds, and cast was bringing 3 cents a pound. I got to the pay window, and the cashier handed me 90 dollars. I refused it, and insisted she check her figures. she checked, assured me $90 was correct. I persisted and had her go over the ticket with me. Being new on the job, and the scaleman had written up the ticket as "cast" she assumed it was cast Aluminum at 30 cents a pound, 90 dollars instead of 9. Was I wrong to not profit from their error? I don't think so. A short time later, the owner sent 3 semi loads of CRT monitors and computer towers, etc to my house, no charge

Removing heat sinks. It use a heat gun. Not a hair dryer. A real professional heat gun. Then I twist clockwise or counterclockwise. The stress on the chip is horizontal. Not vertical.
But. Upon reading further on your problem. Seeing how many you have. Those chips do look delicate. I remembered an old trick. You did ask for a trick. But it deals with something entirely different. What? Removing chewing gum from carpets. FREEZE SPRAY. Spray it on the gum. Freeze it. Comes right off. Freeze the heat sink really well. It may easily fall right off with mininual effort.
I never tried it on heat sinks myself.
Maybe we can all learn something new here.
Problem is. Might be expensive.
Good luck anyway.

Catwhisker, you may have done the joggin' needed for my noggin. My hobby is lapidary and most glues and waxes used to hold stones to the dop stick are easily removed by sticking the stone on a stick in the freezer for a few minutes, then a twist or flex and the stone pops free. I'm heading in to freeze a hashboard right now. I should be able to post results in 15 minutes. If that doesn't do the trick, then I am willing to drop a board in boiling water in a large soup pot/canner and see if that loosens the grip. Did I ever tell you about the time I mixed up garden fertilizers (different nitrates, phosphates, sulfates, etc, in a batch, and when I dropped some populated boards in, it ate every trace of everything metal and organic, leaving me with nothing but clean fiberglass . Bad part was it also created a dense compact one couldn't see thru chemical fog cloud that hugged the ground and slowly drifted up a hill and into the woods-line 50 yards away, never thinning nor dispersing

Freezing works. Hashboard left in refrigerator freezer compartment, which only gets down to about 20 F, allowed me to knock the sinks off if hit from the end. From the side, no. Popped most of them off cleanly, but sometimes took a couple blows. I will try one in a regular freezer which goes down to near 0 F to see if that improves weakening the bond. Later will try toasting the sinks with propane torch, electric stove eye and even oven, although the oven would probably not leave the little chip in place on board.

Had another thought.
Use the property of thermal shock.
Metals when taken suddenly from cold to hot. Will warp.
Those heat sinks going from frozen to quick heat may just pop off.
Or vice versa. Hot to cold. Heat them hot as possible. Then dunk in ice bath.
Only one issue. Aluminum has high thermal conductivity. It resists warping and cracking due to thermal stress. But. The technique might be worth a try.
This interesting. Good luck.

Bare board Oscar now says high peripheral. This board side was heated on electric stove eye for just a few seconds, then the white aluminum sinks came off easily. The other side that look more like chrome or stainless still stuck tight.

I use the Ryobi plug-in 1800° heat gun
Set it to 1200 let it warm for about a minute and then just hover over the sinks for a few seconds
They pop right off easily

You can clear whole rose very quickly just remember to use gloves

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