Drilled motherboards

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  • Askic
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2018
    • 187
    • BIH

    #1

    Drilled motherboards

    Hello,
    I was looking to buy some faulty boards to be used as donor boards for repairs (mainly macbooks but also other manufacturers).

    I was surprised to learn how many boards are offered with holes drilled inside them. I wonder why is that. I could understand if HDD/SDD is drilled to protect any sensitive data, but don't know about logic boards.


    Can anybody shed some light on the topic?

    Thank you!
  • eccerr0r
    Solder Sloth
    • Nov 2012
    • 8658
    • USA

    #2
    Re: Drilled motherboards

    Prevent resale market, especially for big companies that collect their old computers (apple sounds like a good candidate.)

    Comment

    • Askic
      Senior Member
      • Sep 2018
      • 187
      • BIH

      #3
      Re: Drilled motherboards

      So it seems that in most cases manufacturers themselves are drilling holes. So much about recycling and reusing....

      Comment

      • eccerr0r
        Solder Sloth
        • Nov 2012
        • 8658
        • USA

        #4
        Re: Drilled motherboards

        They want you to recycle the materials not compete with their new products...

        Comment

        • momaka
          master hoarder
          • May 2008
          • 12160
          • Bulgaria

          #5
          Re: Drilled motherboards

          Originally posted by Askic
          I was surprised to learn how many boards are offered with holes drilled inside them. I wonder why is that. I could understand if HDD/SDD is drilled to protect any sensitive data, but don't know about logic boards.
          If the motherboards have an SSD or other storage soldered onto the motherboard (such as tablets and many of the modern ultra-thin laptops), then that's probably the reason why... which is silly, because you don't even need to fully low-level format an SSD to make the data completely irrecoverable, unlike on a conventional HDD. Just wiping the file table on the SSD of where all the files are stored is typically enough... and since SSDs are fast, I'm sure there's software out there that can do this on the fly in very little time. But some people/companies are too dumb to learn new ways and would rather smash/destroy stuff than put a little effort and time and recover much of that investment back while also helping the environment and local community.

          Originally posted by eccerr0r
          They want you to recycle the materials not compete with their new products...
          Which is bullshit, because majority of the "materials" in the PCB are various non-recyclable organics and very little metal. On top of that, even then a lot of the metal recovery is not very effective... so you end up with a lot of waste.
          Last edited by momaka; 02-25-2021, 03:22 AM.

          Comment

          • diif
            Badcaps Legend
            • Feb 2014
            • 6978
            • England

            #6
            Re: Drilled motherboards

            They will have been written off against tax, the holes ensure they can't be repaired and any possible data recovered but they can be reused for parts which is better than shredding.
            If it has a T2 chip and wasn't wiped by the previous owner it's scrap anyway.

            Comment

            • eccerr0r
              Solder Sloth
              • Nov 2012
              • 8658
              • USA

              #7
              Re: Drilled motherboards

              Originally posted by momaka
              Which is bullshit, because majority of the "materials" in the PCB are various non-recyclable organics and very little metal. On top of that, even then a lot of the metal recovery is not very effective... so you end up with a lot of waste.
              This is how business works: "NOT MY PROBLEM... IT'S NOW YOUR PROBLEM!"

              Comment

              • sam_sam_sam
                Badcaps Legend
                • Jul 2011
                • 6018
                • USA

                #8
                Re: Drilled motherboards

                Originally posted by eccerr0r
                This is how business works: "NOT MY PROBLEM... IT'S NOW YOUR PROBLEM!"
                This is so true

                Comment

                • eccerr0r
                  Solder Sloth
                  • Nov 2012
                  • 8658
                  • USA

                  #9
                  Re: Drilled motherboards

                  Pisses me off, if they can't get electronics to fail and force people to throw it away, they get software to not run on old hardware anymore and force people throw it away too...why *can't* I still use my P3 and Athlon XP...

                  Comment

                  • RJARRRPCGP
                    Badcaps Legend
                    • Jul 2004
                    • 6301
                    • USA

                    #10
                    Re: Drilled motherboards

                    Originally posted by eccerr0r
                    Pisses me off, if they can't get electronics to fail and force people to throw it away, they get software to not run on old hardware anymore and force people throw it away too...
                    Looks like that will backfire for anything manufactured in the 2010s, with the coronavirus pandemic! Because many people can't even get a later video card!
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                    • dmill89
                      Badcaps Legend
                      • Dec 2011
                      • 2531
                      • USA

                      #11
                      Re: Drilled motherboards

                      Originally posted by Askic
                      So it seems that in most cases manufacturers themselves are drilling holes. So much about recycling and reusing....
                      ^This, businesses recycling their own equipment generally don't care what happens to it once the HDD/SSD is removed/wiped so they generally aren't the ones requiring stuff to be destroyed. However manufacture's "official" recycling programs (especially Apple) often specifically require their contractors destroy equipment to prevent it's reuse, this is largely a result of their vendetta against independent repair (Apple is certainly the worst offender in this, but many other manufactures are following their lead), since it is much harder for independent repair shops to operate if they can't get parts, and since Apple won't sell new parts to " non-authorized" repair shops, used parts were often the only source, but now they are attacking that as well.

                      Comment

                      • eccerr0r
                        Solder Sloth
                        • Nov 2012
                        • 8658
                        • USA

                        #12
                        Re: Drilled motherboards

                        hard drives at least tend to be automatically obsoleted by size/speed, so they don't need to destroy them... alas I'm still using old drives despite this...

                        Comment

                        • RJARRRPCGP
                          Badcaps Legend
                          • Jul 2004
                          • 6301
                          • USA

                          #13
                          Re: Drilled motherboards

                          Originally posted by dmill89
                          vendetta against independent repair (Apple is certainly the worst offender in this, but many other manufactures are following their lead), since it is much harder for independent repair shops to operate if they can't get parts, and since Apple won't sell new parts to " non-authorized" repair shops, used parts were often the only source, but now they are attacking that as well.
                          That backfired with the automobile industry! And even for "big-ag", with John Deere, there were revolts.
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                          "¡Me encanta "Me Encanta o Enlistarlo con Hilary Farr!" -Mí mismo

                          "There's nothing more unattractive than a chick smoking a cigarette" -Topcat

                          "Today's lesson in pissivity comes in the form of a ziplock baggie full of GPU extension brackets & hardware that for the last ~3 years have been on my bench, always in my way, getting moved around constantly....and yesterday I found myself in need of them....and the bastards are now nowhere to be found! Motherfracker!!" -Topcat

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                          Comment

                          • sam_sam_sam
                            Badcaps Legend
                            • Jul 2011
                            • 6018
                            • USA

                            #14
                            Re: Drilled motherboards

                            Why don’t we just stop buying this crap if companies want do this kind-a crap oh I forgot that you can not talk bad about a company like that they might retaliate in some way

                            But sure would be nice though

                            Comment

                            • eccerr0r
                              Solder Sloth
                              • Nov 2012
                              • 8658
                              • USA

                              #15
                              Re: Drilled motherboards

                              problem is that the products are "so good" that getting an alternative is "suboptimal" ...

                              ... until it breaks and suddenly the "so good" item is "suboptimal"...

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