nearby lightning strike disabled displayport

[magellan]

I had a storm come up quick on me and before I could shut off my computer we were getting nailed by lightning strikes in my own neighborhood. By the time I ran to my room to shut off my rig it was already shut off. I cut off power to the switch box that has all the power leads for the PC, stereo/receiver and monitor and waited 'til the storm had finally moved off before trying to fire up my rig. At this point it looked like the display port cable or port(s) in the 1080ti and/or the Asus pg279q were dead because no combination of powering off the PC and/or monitor would get any output from the display port, so I tried HDMI and that worked. On a lark, I then switched to the still connected display port and saw output there as well so I shut down the PC, disconnected the HDMI and everything was back to normal on display port.

Could someone please tell me what the proper actions are to take to isolate electronics equipment (woofers, stereo amplifiers, computers, monitors) from the effects of lightning strikes? The lightning strike in this instance did not hit the house I'm renting a room in directly but nearby and yet it still took my PC down. I have all my equipment on surge protected power strips. My other PC, which was off at the time and still using a CRT was unaffected, but all the cable boxes needed to be reset as well.

Would putting chokes closest to the input/output ports on all the audio, ethernet, power, HDMI, displayport cables help?

Can nearby lightning strikes fry audio equipment as well?

 

[trents]

Uninterruptable Power Supplies are said to offer the most effective surge protection. Also, what are the joule ratings of the surge protectors you presently have deployed. The recommendation I have read is at least 1000 joules. Most junk in department stores don't meet that standard.

 

[EarthDog]

Seems more like a simple glitch from the abrupt shutdown than it's plausible to have lighting shutdown a single port (and nothing else) temporarily.

Like was said, get a decent UPS or surge protector..... but its a lightning strike and these usually don't protect you against direct strikes. Best way is to shut them off.

Edit: a good read - https://www.quora.com/Do-surge-protectors-protect-electronics-during-a-lightning-storm

 

[RollingThunder]

Like was said, get a decent UPS or surge protector..... but its a lightning strike and these usually don't protect you against direct strikes. Best way is to shut them off.

Edit: a good read - https://www.quora.com/Do-surge-protectors-protect-electronics-during-a-lightning-storm

And pull the plugs from any socket!

 

[magellan]

At this point, losing some combination of my monitor, motherboard, RAM and PSU to a lightning strike wouldn't bother me as much as losing JUST the videocard.

I read something about a whole house surge protector that connects directly to the power panel for the whole house being the best option as far as surge protection.

Was it the videocard display port that was apparently and temporarily dead? Or the display port in the monitor?

It's amazing how quick the thunderstorm moved. The lightning and thunder were far away and then all of sudden they were nailing my neighborhood and my street.

I guess from now on whenever I hear/see lightning/thunder I'll shut down all my PC equipment.

Are surge suppressors with 100baset suppression worthwhile?

It's too bad all that all the electrical power from lightning strikes just goes to waste or worse destroys stuff, people and animals.

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

I do this with all my power cords in my house, PC, TV, Radio, what ever has a power cord has this knot in it.
Knot needs to be 3-4 inchs in diameter, I've been using this for over 20 years and have not lost anything to lightning.

 

[EarthDog]

Isn't that a myth?

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/...cord-provide-any-protection-against-lightning
https://physics.stackexchange.com/q...to-prevent-power-surge-from-lightning-strikes

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

Isn't that a myth?

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/...cord-provide-any-protection-against-lightning
https://physics.stackexchange.com/q...to-prevent-power-surge-from-lightning-strikes

Well over 20 years and no failure I say it's no myth, but the knot has to have 3 to 4 inch loop to work.

Lightning is not just 1 pulse, the electricity in a lightning strike is like a discharging capacitor in that it will ring charging and discharging back and forth at a frequency so high that the lose knot with 3-4 inch loop will block it. Way higher than Giga or Tera hertz.

 

[magellan]

Earthdog's research would indicate it's a myth. Considering the amount of energy created by a lightning strike, it's hard to imagine the trivial inductance created by knotting a wire making any significant difference and the resistance in the circuit is still the same so I can't see the knot actually dispersing much more energy than if the knot wasn't there at all.

 

[EarthDog]

Well over 20 years and no failure I say it's no myth,

I'd say correlation isn't causation. On the flip side, I've haven't done that to a power cord in 45 years... so..........I'm going to get a powerball ticket.

Are there links you can provide that prove it? What are your thoughts about the science in the links from above? I'm mean.. it's not grounded... where does the energy go?

 

[freeagent]

If it helps I use an old line conditioner. Its an HDP-1800. Nothing fancy.. but I have my PC, AVR, TV, Sub, CATV, and a console plugged into it.. It works pretty decently I guess. I'm not in a lightning prone area though..

 

[EarthDog]

Well over 20 years and no failure I say it's no myth, but the knot has to have 3 to 4 inch loop to work.

Lightning is not just 1 pulse, the electricity in a lightning strike is like a discharging capacitor in that it will ring charging and discharging back and forth at a frequency so high that the lose knot with 3-4 inch loop will block it. Way higher than Giga or Tera hertz.

BUMP! Still looking to learn here... would love a link to actually confirm or deny this, please.

If this is proven to work by science and not an anecdote, I'm all in!

 

[magellan]

It looks like the nearby lightning strike might have done some damage because for some reason my monitor (the Asus PG279q) or my 1080ti doesn't support Gsync anymore. I don't have the option to select Gsync anymore in control panel.

 

[EarthDog]

That's an odd one. What have you done to get around that? Have you tried reinstalling drivers? Securing connections, etc?

BUMP! Still looking to learn here...

Welp.... blowing this off for sure now.

 

[magellan]

I tried re-installing the latest Nvidia drivers and G-sync still isn't coming up as an option anywhere, but both the DP and HDMI connectors work on both the monitor and the 1080Ti. Could the G-sync module in the monitor have been fried by the lightning strike?

 

[EarthDog]

I tried re-installing the latest Nvidia drivers and G-sync still isn't coming up as an option anywhere, but both the DP and HDMI connectors work on both the monitor and the 1080Ti. Could the G-sync module in the monitor have been fried by the lightning strike?

And nothing else? Perhaps.....

 

[magellan]

Earthdog, if my computer had been powered down during the lightning storm would all this have been avoided? Or would it have to be all (i.e. incl. the monitor) disconnected from wall power as well?

 

[magellan]

Well, it turns out the monitor driver was a generic PnP monitor instead of the Asus drivers, once I installed the Asus PG279q drivers the Gsync option came back. I suppose I'm lucky nothing was permanently damaged by the lightning strike, but the problems it caused are bizarre. From now on whenever there's a lightning storm I'm shutting all my electronics down and unplugging them from the wall.