Computers and Lightening

[n2ize]

I have this 2.8 Ghz Pentium 4 (Dell Dimension 4600) that I use. It is connected via wire to my local ethernet subnet. The subnet is fed off a wired ethernet switch located on the second floor. The switch is fed off a router in the basement via a length of ethernet cable that runs down the side of the building.

last summer during an intense thunderstorm a locally heavy lightening strike blew out the port on my old ethernet hub that my machine was connected into and also burned out the integrated ethernet card in my machine. I remedied the problem by replacing the hub with a switch and adding in a PCI ethernet card to substitute for the built in NIC.

One thing I did notice however. In addition to ruining the integrated nic The lightning strike caused my my computer to freeze entirely. I had to hold the power switch and force it to reboot. Upon rebooting I noticed that the machine started, the setup sp[ash screen came on and then the machine would not move any futher into the boot process. it would just hang. I had to completely shut the power to the machine, wait a couple minutes and then turn it back on in order to get it to reboot. After that all was well...no more trouble.

yesterday there was a strong thunderstorm with several powerful local strikes.
No problems, the machine kept running and all was well. Later on I shut it down and when I trtied to reboot later that evening low... the machine wouldn't boot. it took several attempts before it finally booted. It's been fine since then.

Could strong static discharges cause something to temporarilly latch up and not reboot ? It seems odd that the two instances that the machine gave me a hard time booting up were following 2 locally heavy thunderstorms with local hits.

Anyone else have similar problems. I try to shut the computer and unplug the ethernet cable whenever possible if there is a storm. Of course I cannot do anything about storms that might happen when I am not at home.

[kb1jcy]

Yes, such a jolt would fry components on the PCI southbridge since they are all interconnected. You could of fried your ATA/SATA controller or damage the chipset on your mobo. You can run memtest86 to help pinpoint what may have been affected.

[ac0h]

I have lost a complete motherboard and associated PCI cards due to a nearby (100yds) lightning strike. I disconnected all my Ham gear but forgot the computer.
The surge came in on the phone line, took out the modem (blew the tops off the chipset), north/south bridge, sound card, video card, memory and processor. I did salvage the two hard drives and a DVD burner.
My home owners insurance paid to replace all the suspect parts with the proviso that I may have to replace the drives that seemed OK after I got the new box built.
I still use one of those hard drives in my server.

[n2ize]

Yes, such a jolt would fry components on the PCI southbridge since they are all interconnected. You could of fried your ATA/SATA controller or damage the chipset on your mobo. You can run memtest86 to help pinpoint what may have been affected.

Yeah, but if that happened then why would the computer work at all. The thing is that it eventually did boot up and it has been booting up fine ever since. If anything was cooked I'd assume the machine wouldn't boot up at all.

I was just wondering if anything could have temporarilly latched up due to the local static. It seems that each time after I removed power to the machine and then restarted it worked fine again.

The nic card is another story. That definately fried. For that I had to install a new nic. However, I'd much rather replace a nic or a modem or a sound card rather than replace an entire mobo or, an entirely new machine.

[n2ize]

I have lost a complete motherboard and associated PCI cards due to a nearby (100yds) lightning strike. I disconnected all my Ham gear but forgot the computer.
The surge came in on the phone line, took out the modem (blew the tops off the chipset), north/south bridge, sound card, video card, memory and processor. I did salvage the two hard drives and a DVD burner.
My home owners insurance paid to replace all the suspect parts with the proviso that I may have to replace the drives that seemed OK after I got the new box built.
I still use one of those hard drives in my server.

How do you get the insurance to cover the cost of a replacement or repair of a zapped machine ? Do you have to let them know about the computers before hand ? Or will they take your word for it that they were storm damaged.

I have an entire network here that could easilly be taken out. And, judging from the kinds of storms we've been getting here lately I'm a lot more worried about possible damage than I used to be. In the worst case scenario will they pay me for the damages ? Right now I have no idea.

[ac0h]

I have lost a complete motherboard and associated PCI cards due to a nearby (100yds) lightning strike. I disconnected all my Ham gear but forgot the computer.
The surge came in on the phone line, took out the modem (blew the tops off the chipset), north/south bridge, sound card, video card, memory and processor. I did salvage the two hard drives and a DVD burner.
My home owners insurance paid to replace all the suspect parts with the proviso that I may have to replace the drives that seemed OK after I got the new box built.
I still use one of those hard drives in my server.

How do you get the insurance to cover the cost of a replacement or repair of a zapped machine ? Do you have to let them know about the computers before hand ? Or will they take your word for it that they were storm damaged.

I have an entire network here that could easilly be taken out. And, judging from the kinds of storms we've been getting here lately I'm a lot more worried about possible damage than I used to be. In the worst case scenario will they pay me for the damages ? Right now I have no idea.

As far as I know computers are considered the same types of appliances as TV's, VCR's, Stereo's etc....NX6D would know better.
I called the agent who got me in touch with an adjuster. The adjuster wanted to know if any of the smoked cards could be "repaired". I told her for the labor alone, trying to find and replace all the smoked components on a video card, they could buy three new ones.

They never questioned my trouble shooting and declined my offer of shipping them the smoked boards. Sometimes it's good to have a low deductible. New PC, a hot rod at the time, cost me the price of our deductible (a high end video card).

[kd6nig]

Computers and the innards are very susceptible to such surges. Most appliances that "die" are not theoretically dead, but the computer that controls them is.

And once they are hit, its likely that other stuff "further down the chain" could be cooked also. You could repair, but you took the better course-just get it replaced. Its very likely if you took it somewhere to get it fixed, especially if at a big box store type place, they would just swap components out. And charge you a mint to do it also.

The days of getting down to board level and actually fixing stuff are long gone, except in cases of some companies who might fix "minor issue" returns and then resell them on places like Overstock. But oftentimes they just swap a board out too and toss the other into a bin for component removal. Sometimes.

Its a disposable world that we live in.

[W4DFW]

Just the local EMF induced by nearby lightning can wreck havoc on computer parts. I had a recent lightning strike next door and though my power did not blink, all the computers kept running just fine, my IC 7800 rebooted by itself and now one of the preamps doesn't work.

The bad part was there was no rain, no real storm around to warm me to disconnect the rig. It was a "bolt from the blue" and that was that . . . one of the hazards of living in Florida (the other is hurricanes!)

............Bob

[K8WPJ]

How do you get the insurance to cover the cost of a replacement or repair of a zapped machine ? Do you have to let them know about the computers before hand ? Or will they take your word for it that they were storm damaged.

I have an entire network here that could easilly be taken out. And, judging from the kinds of storms we've been getting here lately I'm a lot more worried about possible damage than I used to be. In the worst case scenario will they pay me for the damages ? Right now I have no idea.

Well, angie and I were able to get an additional line on the homeowners policy for computer equipment and peripherals, because we wer both working in computer related jobs... Call your insurance agent and ask them what's involved in insuring 'high value' items like electronics, and computer equipment... I just had to give them a brief list of what we had, and a estimated value of the stuff and our agent valued the stuff accordingly...

The other thing to look at is the surge suppressors you use... Most of the name brand suppressors like APC, offer connected equpment guarrantiees... Since everything we had damaged in the lightening blast of 2005 that took out the transformer in the yard that feeds my home and the one immediately south of us, I just had to file a claim with the suppressor company, and they sent me a check, and replacement suppressors.

Now, the check wasn't 10 percent of the stuff we lost, but it was well more than enough to cover the deductable on the homeowners policy, and State Farm replaced everything on my damaged list, with equipment that was 'at least equal' to what we lost...

As an example we lost 2 different 21 inch color TV's, they were replaced with 27's simply because that was the smallest size that was at least as big as the sets we lost, that they were able to find...

Everything was drop shipped to the door, and I donated all of the stuff we replaced to goodwill and took the tax writeoff... After all was said, and done, I figured we actually made money on the deal.