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Lighting Strike

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SRB442

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2001
Location
Western New York
Hi,
I Had a severe thunder storm go through my area yesterday and when I got home my server (1.2 PIII) and my main rig in my sig. got fried. Both were on at the time and were not totally off when I got home. The PIII had a burnt smell from the power supply and if I remove power and reinstall it when I power it on it start to go then stops and power light just flashs. The PIV power supply runs and justs some random beeps (none like described in the manual for the mother board). There is no video at all on either machine. I did pick up a antec power supply checker and both power supplys checked good and also bought a new power supply and no change. Is there some checks I can make to verify the mother boards are fried?. I also lost my cable modem,wireless router,TV and one wireless phone. Any help will greatly be appreciated. Steve
 
Check your surge protectors if any, some have guarantees on them to pay for stuff plugged into them damaged by power surges. Also, if you have homeowner's insurance, see if that will pay for your damaged stuff. I don't think there's really anything that can be done... just try to get repaid for your destroyed electronics.
 
You'll basically need access to another board to check your CPU, and another CPU to check your board. Does sound like a wipe-out, though.
 
As Sniper said, the FIRST thing you should do (if you have insurance, that is) is check with your insurance company. I personally know one guy who's rig got fried a couple of years ago, and he got a nice check to buy a new one.
 
Thanks for the input so far. I have contacted my insurance company but have not heard back yet. I stripped down the PIII to the just the mother board and cpu and still get the same result. I was poking around a little and can't find the exact boards I have now. I have a TUSL2-C and a P4T-E ASUS boards. I guess I could upgrade but will the data on the harddrives still be there and accessable? On my server I haver 2 drives running raid 1 data mirroring with my web site on it. I am going to try and get a wireless router today and see if I can get thyat part going today so I casn use my other machines. Thanks Steve
 
With the RAID array, I'm not sure. You may end up starting over with a new mobo. On the other, unless the drives got zapped, too, you should be all right.
 
I wonder if it was the same storm that passed by my house yesterday too. I had my fingers crossed the whole time because XP was installing. Like flickered a couple of times but the power never went out.
 
If I were to find the exact motherboards and everything else was ok would the machines just boot up like they did before the incident? I also lost a washing machine and my P1100 HP printer.
Where will it end. Thanks Steve
 
Ouch....my house was struck 10 months ago...thank god i had a surge protector....my tvs corners are now blue and red.
 
There's another lightning storm going on right now. 10 times worse than yesterday. Lightining strikes every 2 seconds!!. It's crazy, going to shutdown and unplug from the wall.
 
I had a get hit several years ago. Insurance paid for a new PC. After that I got the highest rated surge suppressor I could afford. I think it is rated at 15,000-20,000 joules.
 
I've lost a couple Cable modems due to Floridas severe summer Lightning. (Comcast does not allow you to plug the Cable modem into a UPS or Surge protector, CRAZY I KNOW)

Anyway since I bought my cable modem I plug it into a UPS thats plugged into a Fused Surge protector and haven't had an issue
 
Thank God I live on the West coast... we have like 2 lighting storms a year...

When I was on the East Coast couple years ago they had like 3 big time lighting storms in just a week in the summer.

I asked a couple locals about the frequency... they said at least one a month, this was New Jersey.. so I dont know if this goes for the entire East Coast.

Then I told em here in Cal we get like 2 a year.. they thought I was kidding.

Anyway... I got my comp on surges..

Did you check out the Warranty, and Guarantee on the surge?
 
I thought my apc ups was a surge protector but I guess not. My screw up. I have a claim into my insurance. Once a adjuster contacts me I will know what will be replaced an at what cost. I am glad I was not around when it hit. Must have been scarey. I have already replaced the tv and phone. Looking at motherboards, cpu and memory now. The hard drives still power up so they may be alright but won't know for sure till we get the pc's to post. Steve
 
SRB442 said:
If I were to find the exact motherboards and everything else was ok would the machines just boot up like they did before the incident? I also lost a washing machine and my P1100 HP printer.
Where will it end. Thanks Steve

Yes if you get the same motherboard the OS will boot up like it used to, if you are running win XP you should be able to use a different motherboard and still get into windows to back up your data before you reinstall (a reinstall is highly recomended if you get a different motherboard).

If it was just a single hard drive that you needed to get the data from you could just set it up as a slave on another PC and pull the data you need off of the drive. I am not sure how well that would work with RAID, if you are using a PCI RAID card then you might be able to pull it off.
 
Thanks for the information. I was running data mirroring on my server. The drives were partioned operating system on one partion and data on the other. My main rig was one drive one partion. I am going to upgrade both machines and see what happens. I believe I will be able to get the data off the drives and rebuild. Steve
 
Hey, do you live in the Portland Oregon area? I live in Beaverton Oregon and I got lightings/thunderstorms in my area and my power went out for like 4 hours. Nothing got fried thank god. My computer is also on 24/7.
 
I live in the Western New York area. We get lighting storms a few times a year. This was the first time I have had a problem. I even had a tree struck 100' away and never hurt anything. Steve
 
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