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Gold inside computer towers? Yes? No?

I scrap for a living and make good money... I just recently learned that the little chips under the little fan in a computer tower has a bunch of little prongs of gold. When on the chip its not attracted to a magnet but as soon as I remove these prongs they are attracted to the magnet. The guys at the scrap yard pay good money for these chips because of that reason...I think.. why would they pay good money for these chips if its not gold...and gold is not magnetic. I don't understand why its not magnetic on the chip but as soon as I remove the prongs its magnetic. Anybody know the truth behind these little chips?

Teresa Haapala
hobbyist - Whitmore Lake, Michigan, U.S.
October 19, 2009

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They are not gold. The contacts you describe are copper alloy which has been plated with nickel and gold. The nickel plating makes them slightly magnetic.

The gold plating is very thin and not worth reclaiming.

Jeffrey Holmes, CEF
Spartanburg, South Carolina
October 22, 2009

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Well I guess there is some good money to be made in scrounging metals from computers, TVs, radios and other electric gadgets. I know there is an outfit in British Columbia that does just that. Apparently it requires some high tech processing and huge volumes to make it possible but it seems to work. There are also a couple plants in Europe that do the same thing. I would be willing to bet it's the lead and aluminum that they are mostly after but I see that the 2010 Olympic medals are supposedly going to be made from metals reclaimed by these plants. I would be willing to bet that there is less than .50 cents worth gold in any given computer so I can see where the gold is simply a by product they get while recovering other more common metals.

Rod Henrickson
gunsmith - Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
October 23, 2009