data is on the hard drive not motherboard

...and nor is it on the RAM or the video card

unless they have a trash compactor. then hes screwed

You can't just get it out of the trash and expect it to work. Any little ding or bit of garbage on it will completely ruin a motherboard. I doubt OP's mom handled it carefully enough when she threw it away, so it's likely ruined by now.

yea, I lol at all the comment 'get it out of the trash' . MB and RAM are delicate hardware, any trash touch them or handled badly will damage them. Let have a scenario similar to this for people have no idea how computer part work. If you have a regular camera/phone (non sock and non water proof), drop it from a second level balcony. After it landed and then bounce into a nearby pool, do you still expect it work normally.

All the people saying how delicate RAM and Motherboards are. They're really not. I've twisted RAM until I could hear the silicon cracking and it still worked fine. Unless there's something sticky on the board, he should be fine. Even then, clean it with some high percent isopropyl alcohol and you'll most likely be fine.

They're not that delicate kurato. I have cleaned spilled coffee, chocolate and an assortment of yogurts off of the internals of computers of people not bright enough to know not to set spillable food on top. I have also dropped spare parts off of my desk to the floor numerous times with no damage, and my hardwood floor is certainly a harder landing than the garbage can. The only computers that fragile are macs and they're disposable garbage not worth upgrading. They don't even design em on the pretense of upgradability anymore, just on the assumption that you will buy a new one every year or two.

63 -- actually, thanks. i was considering buying a mac eventually (because they switched to intel processors), but if you can't upgrade them, then what's the point? i buy desktops based on the assumption that i would be able to upgrade them numerous times before i have to get a new one... again, thanks... |the kid|

Just throwing computer components into the trash shouldn't damage them unless the trash is extremely wet. Even then, you can just wipe the components down and let them sit for a few days, until the water evaporates. The "sit for a few days" is the crucial part.

63, funny, the "disposable garbage" sitting under my desk right now is 8 years old, has undergone a hard drive upgrade and two RAM upgrades, and is still running strong. So's the Apple //e sitting in the closet that's more than 30 years old. Wish I could say the same about my brother's two-year-old Toshiba, but unfortunately that's not the case.

77, you sure as hell can upgrade them. My dad's MacBook Pro has been upgraded to an SSD and 8GB RAM, my PowerMac G4 has been upgraded from a 40GB to a 120GB drive and 256MB RAM to 1.5GB, and I've upgraded a Mac Mini's hard drive as well. If you have a tower, you can upgrade the video card or processor (or add more hard drives), and besides those four things, what else is there to upgrade?

who gives a shit? Some people put value into amazing computers utilizing them to their full capabilities for 1080p movies and video games. ever heard of video games? Its a hobby for some people which actually does bring them together with friends giving them a social life (against common belief). I'm sure you have a hobby that we would say who gives a shit. So respect other peoples hobbies. p.s. your computer does not run without a motherboard. assuming you have facebook, that would be gone if you have your own computer without the mother board

Well, it's pretty obvious you're not one of those people. You're also barely literate; no one was criticizing him for building his own PC our for upgrading it, but for how he was doing it. RAM and GPUs are snap in pieces that do not require the removal of the motherboard to install.

97, uh, no. Facebook is online. It's stored across many servers in a server farm in some remote location in the world, so you can access it from any computer. Throwing out your motherboard will not "throw out" your Facebook. And even if Facebook were local (meaning stored on your computer instead of servers), throwing out your motherboard would not "throw out" your Facebook, because locally-stored data is kept on the hard drive, not the motherboard.