Computer Scrap Rate in Pakistan Today (2026 E-Waste & PCB Prices)
In Pakistan’s wholesale electronic scrap markets, Complete Green Motherboards trade at Rs. 3,800 – 5,200 / KG, while Gold-Finger RAM (Grade #1) commands Rs. 28,000 – 36,000 / KG due to precious metal recovery.
Electronic waste—commonly traded as Computer Scrap (کمپیوٹر کباڑ)—is the highest-value niche within Pakistan’s recycling sector. Unlike ordinary iron or plastic scrap, discarded desktop towers, enterprise servers, telecom boards, and dead laptops contain concentrated amounts of 24K gold-plated contact pins, palladium capacitors, silver solder, high-purity electrolytic copper, and cast aluminum. Specialized e-waste dealers in Karachi (Shershah & Regal Chowk) and Lahore (Hall Road & Bilal Ganj) purchase these components by weight and piece for hydrometallurgical metal recovery and export sorting.
1. High-Value Computer Circuit Boards & PCB Scrap Rates (Per KG)
Wholesale e-waste buyers grade computer Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) based on chipset generation, gold pin thickness, and whether the northbridge/southbridge IC chips and copper coils are still attached:
2. Complete Dead Systems, Casings & Processors (Per Piece Rates)
When offices, banks, universities, or call centers auction off obsolete IT inventory in bulk lots, scrap contractors buy complete non-working units at these per-piece rates:
3. City-Wise E-Waste Mandi Comparison in Pakistan
Why Old Green Motherboards Sell for More Than Newer PC Boards
One of the most surprising facts for first-time sellers at Hall Road in Lahore or Shershah in Karachi is that 20-year-old Pentium 3, Pentium 4, and early LGA-775 green motherboards fetch Rs. 800 to Rs. 1,200 more per kilogram than modern Core i5 or Core i7 motherboards. The reason comes down to semiconductor manufacturing history:
- Thicker Gold Micron Plating Before 2008: When international 24K gold prices were much lower in the late 1990s and early 2000s, motherboard manufacturers used thicker electroplated gold layers on CPU socket pins, IDE/PCI slot connectors, and inside the fine bonding wires of large Northbridge and Southbridge BGA chips.
- Modern Ultra-Thin Flash Plating: Newer blue, black, and red gaming motherboards use micro-flash gold plating and smaller integrated chipsets containing less recoverable precious metal per kilogram.
- Server & Telecom Backplane Boards: Dual-socket enterprise server boards (HP ProLiant, Dell PowerEdge, IBM) and telecom base-station cards command the highest PCB rates of all—often exceeding Rs. 6,500 to Rs. 9,000 per kg—because of their dense multi-layer copper sheets and heavy gold pin headers.
How Precious Metals (Gold, Silver & Copper) Are Extracted from Computer Scrap
Pakistan’s informal and formal e-waste refiners process discarded computer components in three distinct stages:
- Manual Dismantling & Component Grading: Workers first strip the steel tower casing (sold to iron scrap furnaces), remove the aluminum CPU heatsink (sold at Rs. 540–620/kg), and clip off the power supply wiring harness. Next, hot-air guns are used to desolder BGA IC chips, tantalum capacitors, and crystal oscillators from the motherboard.
- Gold Finger Trimming & Acid Stripping: The gold-plated edge strips (“fingers”) on RAM modules and PCI graphic cards are sheared off and soaked in an oxidizing acid bath or nitric acid solution, which dissolves the base copper and releases pure 24K gold foils. These foils are then melted with borax or refined via the Aqua Regia chemical precipitation process to yield 99.9% fine gold (Tezaabi Sona). Roughly 1 metric ton of high-grade RAM and CPU scrap yields between 180 and 300 grams of pure gold.
- Copper Smelting from Stripped Boards & PSUs: Once the gold pins and IC chips are removed, the remaining fiberglass motherboard sheets and power-supply transformers are smelted to recover high-grade electrolytic copper.
How to Get 40% Higher Value When Selling Old Office or Home Computers
If you sell a dead desktop computer to a street hawker (pheriwala) as a single lump unit, they will typically offer only Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 1,800. Spending 15 minutes with a Phillips screwdriver to separate four parts immediately boosts your payout:
- Unscrew the Green Logic Board from Dead Hard Drives: A complete 3.5-inch hard drive sells for ~Rs. 500/kg as cast aluminum, but the small green circuit board screwed to its underside sells separately for Rs. 8,500 to Rs. 11,500 per kg!
- Remove the Aluminum CPU Cooler Block: Never leave a heavy aluminum/copper CPU heatsink bolted onto the motherboard when selling to a dealer—if the heatsink is attached, the buyer will downgrade the entire motherboard weight to “dirty/mixed board” pricing.
- Keep RAM Sticks & CPUs in a Separate Zip Bag: Even 40 to 50 old DDR2 or DDR3 RAM sticks weigh roughly half a kilogram and can fetch Rs. 14,000 to Rs. 18,000 cash on the spot at wholesale counters in Regal Chowk or Hall Road.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the scrap value of a dead laptop in Pakistan?
In Pakistan, a complete non-working or broken-screen laptop sells for Rs. 800 to Rs. 2,200 per piece depending on whether the internal motherboard, RAM, and copper heat-pipe cooling assembly are still intact inside.
What is the price of 1 kg gold RAM scrap in Pakistan?
High-grade computer RAM scrap with gold-plated contact fingers (RAM #1 Grade) currently trades between Rs. 28,000 and Rs. 36,000 per kilogram in Lahore (Hall Road) and Karachi (Shershah / Regal Chowk), moving in line with 24K gold bullion rates.
What is the scrap rate per kg for computer motherboards?
Complete computer motherboards with BGA IC chips attached sell between Rs. 3,800 and Rs. 5,200 per kg (older green P3/P4/G31 boards fetch the highest price, while newer colored Core-i boards sell around Rs. 3,400–4,100 per kg). Stripped boards without ICs sell for Rs. 420 to Rs. 600 per kg.
How many RAM sticks make 1 kilogram of scrap?
Approximately 45 to 55 standard desktop RAM sticks (or 95 to 110 smaller laptop SO-DIMM RAM modules) without metal heat-spreaders weigh 1 kilogram.
