I've never really considered stripping parts for profit.. I generally just pull RAM (including DIP packages that are soldered) in case I come across another bad item to *attempt* fixing. This habit can surely salvage some old video cards. I also harvest most capacitors (generally avoiding caps around the VRM and surface mounts). Primarily because I do little tinkering projects and I don't want to order bulk, so I just collect randoms.

Occasionally I'll snip cables so I can have the plastic housing, those things are generally ripoff priced if you ever just need one or two for a project. Especially LPT cables.

I've also been noticing many socket 3 boards that should have a voltage regulator showing a bare spot, somebody out there has definitely been cannibalizing those. You can order them cheap from places like adafruit now though so surely not profitable.

I keep everything and what I dont keep gets dumped into lots so someone else can repair or salvage what they can, some stuff one just cant throw away anymore.

nforce4max wrote:

I keep everything and what I dont keep gets dumped into lots so someone else can repair or salvage what they can, some stuff one just cant throw away anymore.

I too have an incredibly difficult time junking any old hardware. There is always somebody out there with the tools and the time to fix it.

BeginnerGuy wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

I keep everything and what I dont keep gets dumped into lots so someone else can repair or salvage what they can, some stuff one just cant throw away anymore.

I too have an incredibly difficult time junking any old hardware. There is always somebody out there with the tools and the time to fix it.

I have trouble with this myself, but not everything can be saved. I end up with huge piles of rusted, smashed or stripped parts because my main method of finding rare components is from gold scrap lots. I keep anything that looks salvageable and useful, then I resell the remaining scrap. Modems and some other parts are basically always useless. Some times an otherwise useful card will have significant PCB damage or several broken components, and unless it is very rare, I'm not going to bother trying to repair it.

It'd be nice to know what components are worth keeping from cards like this to get as much use out of them as possible before resorting to scrapping.

Heatgun will work wonderfully for removing parts.

I remove most of the connectors, all tantalum and large ceramic capacitors, all good brand e-caps, all memory chips (SRAM, DRAM, flash chips, EEPROMs etc.), all crystals and sometimes large functional chips like northbridges.

I would also throw in that you should definately salvage OPL and CMS chips from broken soundcards.
Also it can sometimes be useful to have some spare IC sockets.

I salvage pretty much exactly what Tiido posted with the addition of jumper caps, brackets and screws. Here are some situations I can think of where having a bunch of salvaged parts would come in handy:

• Battery damage on motherboards usually corrodes nearby components like the AT power and keyboard connectors, so I replace them with salvaged good ones.
• I've rescued computers and monitors that had video/audio connectors ripped right off the motherboard probably from tripping or falling while anchored to the cables, so keep those connectors around.
• I've replaced SIMM slots with broken clips on old motherboards with good ones salvaged from dead boards.
• I cut the cables off of bad power supplies to make custom adapters for other PSUs or for random electronic projects.
• Things like CD-ROM drives and (old) modems have some Flash ROM and DRAM that might be worth salvaging.
• I don't usually save pin headers and DIP sockets though since they're easy and cheap to get new, they tend to get easily damaged by heat, and worn sockets can cause all sorts of intermittent problems.