Lightning Strike + Insurance Claim

[OcX]

Early Sunday morning my house was struck by lightning which caused a surge of electricity to travel through the Coaxial cable down to the Charter Modem, though the Cisco router and into my CAT5 Port of my PC. Still trying to figure that one out...

Spec:
i7 920
Asus Rampage 2 Extreme x58
PC P&C 860w

Power Buttons:
Anyhow, I attempt to power on my PC and nothing. No response from the power button on the case or the power buttons built in to the Motherboard. The PSU fan did not spin or show/hear any activity.Nothing.

Lights:
I check the indicator lights on the motherboard, and they are On/Lit up as normal.

Power Supply:
I went to Bestbuy and bought a comparable PSU to test against and same issue, PC won't power on, PSU fans won't spin.

Attempts:
-Pull CMOS Battery, let sit for several hours
-Unplugged all devices
-Attempted to boot mobo with ATX + 8 Pin only.
-Said Prayers

Conclusion:
I suspect the motherboard got fried via the CAT5 port. How a surge of electricity can go from a Charter Modem THROUGH a Cisco E3200 wired/wireless router down a CAT5 cable and into my PC is mind boggling to me...but it happens supposedly.

Here's the situation:
I have Home owners insurance which covers incidents like this. What I'm interested in is finding out if anyone else had to go through a similar situation and how they had their claim certified by either a PC shop or electrician and how their computer and/or parts were valued and how they were valued.

I can replace the motherboard, that's not an issue more of a hassle. However, if I can get a check for a couple of grand then I would most likely upgrade to a newer cpu, mem, mobo and forego the headache of restoring something that is a bit dated.

Interested in hearing from any other home owners/renters that have been through a similar situation and how you came out on top. With Diablo III right around the corner I'm looking to move pretty fast on this. Please advise.

 

[ssjwizard]

First electricity takes every path available not "the path of least resistance" as most people believe. The path of least resistance carries most of the current though.

Anyway if the motherboard is toast the CPU and RAM probably are also. Thats enough for most to call it dead. Your insurance should pay the replacement cost of a comparable new system less your deductible. Fortunately for you socket 1377 stuff is generally still more expensive than socket 1155 gear is.

Good luck.

 

[westom]

Interested in hearing from any other home owners/renters that have been through a similar situation and how you came out on top.

You must unlearn a few assumptions. To have motherboard damage, first the electric current must be incoming on one wire. And outgoing at the exact same time on some other wire. Your damage sounds classic. A lightning strike far down the street confronted every appliance inside your house via AC electric. Was everything damaged? Again, to have damage means both an incoming AND OUTGOING path.

It found the best path to earth - "a path of least resistance". Incoming on AC mains. Destructively via the motherboard. Out the LAN port eventually to the modem. And then to earth via the cable. This assumes the cable has protection superior to what any protector might do. A wire from the cable low impedance ('less than 10 feet') to earth ground.

What was damaged? Probably the outgoing path.

The surge was inside hunting for earth because you all but invited it. Learn from the experience to never have damage again.

You had little reasons to believe a supply was damaged. Some of the best protection inside the house is inside that supply. In your case, the surge found a path destructively around that supply. This damage is made especially easy if a protector was on any nearby appliance. The it was connected directly to the motherboard - competely bypassing superior protection inside the supply.

Other possiblities exist. Above is one classic example of why damage occurs. And why informed consumers earth a 'whole house' protector.

Meanwhile, what inside the computer failed. The answer could be accurate and immediate if a multimeter and one minute of labor had been used. At those point, just keep replacing good parts until something works since you have already replaced so much. Meanwhile, learn from the mistake. Earth one well proven solution so that surges do not go hunting destructively inside the house.