[Mario1]

I feel so lucky right now, many storms had visited my home, the house we're in has like 4-5 lighting strikes, the 1st one we had to change the whole electric installation of the house (bye bye 1200$)...
The other ones I was just sitting in my room, watching TV (this was the last one like yesterday or something) and just started F@H (GO TEAM 32!!!).
I heard a big *BANG* sound, my TV continued working, but my PC shut down.
Everytime I tried turning it on it woudl just go *beep beep beep beep* had to clear the CSMOS and I was runnin n gunnin.
So yeah, I have a 29$ (or maybe even less) chinese PSU with no surge protection and stuff like that, but my PC still works.

[Psycogeec]

When i get into a new house i check the grounding (as mentioned) of the wall plugs, approx 1/5th of the plugs in the houses i have been in were wired improperly (undoubtedly by certified electricions), with the hot lead on the wrong side of the plug, takes a few minutes to correct, and the testing plug thing costs some $5-12 total.

1/2 of the Telephone connections were wired improperly, heck i didnt even know there is a proper way, but a simple telephone testing device i had for other purposes displayed that. again takes a few minutes to switch back to correct. (i have no idea if this effects the grounding of it, as any discharges through the Un-Sheilded pair big enough would still nuke things).

Most of the locations had proper grounding for the cable, the gas, and other things that should have some sort of grounding. doesnt hurt to check, why is that pole in the ground there with no wire connected to it ? a duhh moment from a contractor, his supervisor and a inspector that doesnt do its job? or has it just rusted off?
Does the big Lightning rod (antenna or sat dish) have the minamalist grounding wire and grounding pole into the ground? is it connected? did the idjut from the Sat company who installed even know its purpose? When you take a look at your house cable box, is the sheilded cable grounded , at the street box where your and other connects are made to the trunk is it grounded?

Did anybody ever pre-emtivly check to see if things that are supposed to be wired correct are, and things that are supposed to be grounded were? Like say you get to a New house or newly purchanced or moved into or rented, they basically HAVE TO fix this stuff, with no cost to you, all you have to do is discover it missing or wrong.
If the sat company the cable company or PG&We doesnt have thier grounds in proper, they would be happy to send someone to fix them, it sure beats post litigation due to installers not doing thier jobs correct.

obviously proper grounding and wiring wont interfere with a direct strike, but it certannly has a purpose that works, but does it even exist? CODE!

My computers and other electrical nessities for job operation all have upses, most with isolation transformers and the minor surge protection.
we dont get lightning strike at the actual location, but i still Turn off the expencive tech junk before harsh storms, which resulted (more often here) in the power companies transformer explosions and meltdowns. aparentally THEY have thier grounding proper in this area.
So i have limited chance of getting 18" sparks flying around and jumping across stuff, but hard surges and browns i dont need, so off it goes. even if the upses are insured, it isnt worth the trouble. I wouldnt let my house burn down , or drive like a foo because i have "insurance" somebody is going to be paying for it one way or another.

by the way, where is the receipt anyways ???? :-)

.

[Sammich]

I lost a laptop and desktop in one year via electrical storms, along with 3 modems..

There is one method for electrical storms to protect your products, and its unplugging them.

[Paratrooper1n0]

Phone lines? LMAO. Mine go through my Surge Protector before it hits my PC.

[tienlv2011]

Regardless of the protection I have, I unplug my computer if there are lightening. So far I've been lucky with only one fried 56k modem (also killed satellite reciever at the same time). Considering my first computer was a PET, that's a hell of a long time with no trouble till a couple years ago with that 56k modem.

[stunt]

I have a whole house surge protector in my breaker box. It is supposed to fry first on either hot or ground and protect the whole house. But at 500 bucks a pop. I hope I don't ever have to use it. Still wont protect phone or cable lines though.

[k1ndafad3d]

i think its hilarious that companies sell "lightning surge protectors"

there is simply no tech I know of that can harness a lightning strike's energy, they can only make a more attractive path to a solid ground that will hopefully allow the bolt to pass without blowing anything up.. haha

[Foolios]

Originally Posted by eobard

I haven't tested this myself but supposedly tying overhand knots in your power cable will insulate your devices from lightning. Apparently having overhand knots causes the lightning to loop back on itself and it burns out the power cord, not the actual device itself. My tv's got overhand knots in it's power cord just incase.

Does anyone have any info on this? Does the proximity of the lines crossing each other cause the arc to jump as a short in this manner?

Debunked?

[Adragontattoo]

Originally Posted by garwain

it depends on the quality of the surge supressors / UPS.

Actually the chances of getting a massive surge from a stike are not all that slim. I have changed several modems, and replace a few systems over the last couple years that were hit by a surge caused by lightning. The chances of a direct strike on the line are very slim though. I agree, if a bolt of lightning stuck the powerline outside my house, the my system would probably blow out, but as I said, only my main rig stays up unless it is a bad storm. I'm confident enough with my protection that I'll chance a surge coming in off the lines, but I will yank the remaining plugs if conditions get really bad.

I have told this story a few times but here I go again.

It does NOT depend on the quality of the UPS in regards to a massive strike/surge.

Long ago, I was a lowly cable tech wiring a data center. THe data center was located on two different grids to minmize the necessity to use a generator. THe power Co decided to test the failover to the other grid which resulted in something along the lines of a 20kva surge...

The ROOM sized industrial UPS didnt handle that surge well. In fact it didnt handle it at all. Ever seen a battery on fire? How about exploding batteries on fire? End result was that the brand new fully tested Industrial sized UPS was turned into plastic soot covered, molten lead laden, acid soaked shrapnel which required Hazmat to deal with.

It doesnt matter the quality of the UPS, it doesnt matter the SIZE of the UPS, lightning carries a high enough voltage surge that you arent going to do much more then watch the UPS let all the magic smoke out and hope it doesnt make it past it.

[Bobnova]

Here's the thing about lightning: It just jumped an air gap of miles. Air is a pretty good insulator, it generally takes around 1000 volts to get a spark started, and another 1000 per mm of air gap. There are an awful lot of millimeters in a mile.

Nothing you do is going to stop it, your only hope is to send it somewhere else (lightning rods).
The MOVs in a surge protector are strong, but they'll chunk themselves well before they get the entire lightning surge to ground.

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Tying cords in a knot seems to be a myth. The wire pair (or 3 if it's grounded) are generally separated by insulation and the actual metal wire may be under 1/4" apart. If the spike is strong, it will jump through insulation, and if by bad luck it doesn't jump through the insulation it will travel the entire length (tied or not) and fry everything in its path.

[captainmpirical]

I just got a new system I'm leary of plugging in, now that I realize there isn't a grounded outlet in my room. AaaaaaahH!!rr rg. Can you really ground an ungrounded plug? One guy said the ground in "new" house-wiring (we-ve got this old "Romex" he called it, [I think]) isn't really "ground", like the ground, ground: it floats around with reference to the "trough" of the 120 ac signal and varies (between 2 and 6 volts, maybe) (so "ground", grounding wouldn't work). He happened to be an electrician. What do I know, I'm just a programmer.

The breaker-box has ground-wires out of the bottom, to the ground-rod, outside. Also, there are some white, flat wires out of the box that say "14AWG/2 TRIANGLE WIRE & CABLE INC. S (UL) TYPE NM-B WITH GROUND 600V", and some are grey, round wires, out of the box.

I just want to be able to get the light to turn out on my surge-protector that's labelled, "NOT GROUNDED" (so the warranty will still be "good").
I'll still be unplugging, during a storm, but want to be protected in other kinds of surge.

Can I just ground to a pipe (really), like I've read, here ? I've had this 'ol Gateway (8DT-084_) plugged in here for about 10 years--with a surge protector--with no lightning problems...I always turn it's main switch off (after I turn off the system off, though).

It was big bucks this new system, an AMD A8-3850, ZT Affinity 7152Ma. It does have an MSI Military Class II motherboard (A75MA-G55) , but I'm just not sure I should even try it, without the ground.

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Under normal circumstances, you can get away with ungrounded outlet for computers. The only issue that can arise is with cheap PSU that may have loose wiring on the HV side that could make the whole PC case hot and you could get zapped if it's not grounded. However if your area is prone to lots of surges, surge suppressor will not work here because they basically clamp excess voltage into ground. Without ground to dump excess voltage, the PSU ends up having to handle it and cheaper PSU will likely fail prematurely.

Long answer: get an electrician to deal with it. Some insurance and product's warranty will not cover damage by lightening or excess surge from electric-heavy devices (vacuum, AC, washing machines, etc) if they think the damage could have been prevented with proper grounded outlet and working surge suppressor, which normally dump excess (from surge) right into ground.

[ssjwizard]

Originally Posted by captainmpirical

I just got a new system I'm leary of plugging in, now that I realize there isn't a grounded outlet in my room. AaaaaaahH!!rr rg. Can you really ground an ungrounded plug? One guy said the ground in "new" house-wiring (we-ve got this old "Romex" he called it, [I think]) isn't really "ground", like the ground, ground: it floats around with reference to the "trough" of the 120 ac signal and varies (between 2 and 6 volts, maybe) (so "ground", grounding wouldn't work). He happened to be an electrician. What do I know, I'm just a programmer.

The breaker-box has ground-wires out of the bottom, to the ground-rod, outside. Also, there are some white, flat wires out of the box that say "14AWG/2 TRIANGLE WIRE & CABLE INC. S (UL) TYPE NM-B WITH GROUND 600V", and some are grey, round wires, out of the box.

Ok let me shed some light on how your power system works(should work) if its up to NEC spec. You have 3 wires coming in from local power co, these are both ends of a single phase 240 volt transformer and a center tap which I will call neutral from here forward. Inside your main panel you will have a solid copper #6 awg wire that runs either to two 8' ground rods ~5' apart OR to the rebar in the slab of the building(known as a ufer ground). This copper ground is bonded(mechanically linked) to the neutral wire. This is NOT done so that voltage carry to ground, It is done to give a reference electrical potential. Your cable, phone, gas, and water systems in your house SHOUD all also be bonded to this grounding electrode. This is done so that ALL systems have the same electrical potential NOT to dissipate current. Now inside your panel for normal newer installs the hot is connected to an OCPD(over current protection device) which can be a breaker, fuse, or any number of other devices. The neutral AND the ground are BOTH bonded into the neutral bus. The "ground" is a misnomer and is actually known as a bonding electrode. The reason for having two conductors to a common bus is simple. One is tasked with carrying normal current and the other fault current. When a circuit shorts to "ground" that current is not being dissipated into the ground, it is carried back to the panel and then out through the service drop neutral to the transformer.

Saying that the wire is "Romex" is fairly uninformative as it is a brand not a cable type. If its 2 wire NMC(non metallic cable) you can still create a bonding while it isnt ideal it can allow you to have a marginal amount of fault tolerance without replacing the wiring in your home. Pre NEC-1993 it was farily common practice to install 2 wire and use a "bonding jumper" on 3 wire plugs rather than installing true 3 wire cable. All a bonding jumper is just a short piece of copper wire thats wire nutted with the neutral and lugged onto the grounding terminal of the outlet.

So unless your planning to have an electrician come and rewire your house or run a single dedicated circuit to that room this is your best answer. Go to the depot and grab a proper 3 wire outlet and 6" of #14 THHN. Flip off the breaker and install. Easy as that you have a pseudo 3 wire "grounded" outlet.

[captainmpirical]

Thanks, ssjwizard. I used to be in a 2 yr. tech school (Electronics Engineering Technology) ...this stuff is very interesting, and useful [wish I would've finished the 2nd yr. out {made it up to Electronic Communications class}] . I opted for the safe way, and only got charged $340, for 2 hrs. + materials (we've got this plastered chicken-wire like wall to cut through--and $140 for 2 hrs. isn't that bad [is it?]) . Anyway, now I've got a grounded outlet, grounded to the box ("new" wire, and all).

Never thought It would take me so long to plug my new computer in! My nephew thought I was crazy (whipper-snapper)!!

ZT Systems 7138Ma
A8-3850, 16G
MSI A75MA-G55 (FM1) board
Radeon HD 6550D
LG Blue-Ray 12x Re-Writer
Samsung 2T hd (5400rpm)

[Ivy]

The question is, where does a surge coming from. The easy answer which is told to everyone at a school, its a charge between cold and hot air. But can that truly cause a discharge with a power like that and with so much of random? Probably there is another energy source we dont know off...

I was rather careless till that day but after reading those posts i have to admit, rather drive save and remove all the power connections as soon as it does appear. Finally, there is nothing which can protect from a huge strike, no matter what the companys are telling us, they simply want our cash, its as easy as that. Worst case scenario is when even the UPS is exploding and its parts might cause a fire in the building. Finally, without any devices attached there is not much which can be used in order to set it on fire... its simply much more safe.

However, i live in a country with A LOT of thunderstorm, and always disconnecting stuff gets very annoying when it happens several times a week (sometimes almost every evening in the summer). So, it can indeed be a huge issue. But im truly not sure if all the counter measures would protect me.

[fgf80]

I leave my computer plugged in unless it's a HUGE storm. I have a surge protector that isn't rated that high, but it protects phone lines, and the manufacturer will be giving me ten grand if anything on it dies while it is still working, and I have a system image from the last time I did something that I couldn't easily redo.

[Ivy]

Recently a bolt was smashing right into the ground very close to home. The bolt was able to cut the 2.4 Ghz frequency of my KB and i heard a system-sound, which means that the connection has been lost. Few sec after connection has been recovered but i now truly have lot of respect from that kind of stuff. A thunderbolt is not to be underestimated when it will hit the wrong spot... and it can even cause very high electromagnetic waves which are able to cut very strong frequencys. I would NEVER connect my net and any HDD to a wireless network, its not able to provide the redundancy i need but for a input device such as KB and mouse it certainly is sufficient.

Thunderstorms near mountains can happen all of a sudden and it can appear that quick and unprediced that i may be unable to cut cables at the very first bolts. So the best of the countermeasures is still, to have a backup of all data which is NOT connected to any kind of cables. Thats critical and absolutly unavoidable in IT environment. Thats the only stuff able to save someones burning butt... and other missfortunes.

[Neo565]

I have 10,000 volt fuses on all lines (telecom,electrical,tv).

[Tinmann]

I unplug all my expensive electronics. My neighbor got zapped and one day I come home and I thought he was having a yard sale but it was all dead. My mother thought everything attracted lightning and would make us sit down and shut up during a storm.