Bolt of Lightning to PC

Noviceman

Hi,

I think this is a bit of a hopeless cause, but I'll post anyway, there was lightning over the weekend and my PC seems to have got struck even though it was on a surge protector. Nothing happens now when I try to turn it on, absolutely nothing, I've tried different power supplies, different sockets, same result. There used be a light on the front when plugged in before and then obviously it powered up when I hit switch, now no light and and nothing happens when I hit switch. I opened it up and all the electronics and circuit boards seem ok. Anybody any idea of what it might be or what I can try before bringing to PC shop, I was thinking maybe power supply.

red_ice

unplug everything from the computer and leave it sit for 24 hoursish.. It could be the polyfuse on your motherboard acting up. If you can, remove the cmos battery aswell for the time being (cant hurt).

See you in 24 hours

Noviceman

well, actually everything has been unplugged now since sat evening, and i just tried it today with same result, hadn't cmos battery taken out, will try that, can't see it making it any difference though

red_ice

id think the same too. But i must reitterate, remove EVERYTHING from the computer and leave it aside

Overheal

by power supply do you mean the transformer box inside the PC, not the power cable, correct?

MunsterCycling

Sounds simple but have you checked the fuse in the power lead?

MC

Orion

MunsterCycling wrote: »

Sounds simple but have you checked the fuse in the power lead?

MC

Was just about to say that. And the one in the surge protector. Occam's Razor and all that

MunsterCycling

It might of done its job and got errr fused!!!

Noviceman

My original post should have said different power cords instead of different power supplies, haven't changed the psu within the box, the surge protector is also fine, the monitor is plugged into it and working fine.

Had it unplugged from everything now since sat and the cmos battery out since yesterday, tried again this morning, not a thing, i think it's goosed, i can't seem to remove the psu to check if that's the problem

Noviceman

I think I've figured out what happened here, the surge protector is fine and everything else that was on it is working fine. However, my router which was connected to phone line and PC is also wiped, so i'm guessing the strike came through the phone line, blew the router then the PC making the surge protector redundant. Is this possible, is there anything that can be done to stop this in the future?

Is there any hope now for my PC, should I bring it to a repair shop or is that just a waste of time?

MarkR

Is your network card integrated into the motherboard, or is it a seperate pci card? The strike could certainly have passed down the line, took out your router, and then for good measure proceeded down the cat5 to your pc.

You can get a surge protector that does have the facility to pass through a telephone signal, which should protect you against future strikes.

Noviceman

yup, it's integrated into the motherboard....

so, is there any hope of fixing this?

MarkR

If it was me, I would try a replacement power supply. Failing that, upgrade kit (motherboard, cpu, memory, fan).

thekooman

your house insurance should cover the cost of a new pc. the assessor will take it away and you'll get the cost of a new one.
know a girl i work with and it happened to her. she had a dual core machine and with the money she got back she was able to get a quad core from dell with no monitor as she already had the monitor.
if you could get a backup of the existing harddrive i suppose that would help!

Noviceman

yes that's the route I've gone, have already rang home insurance and they're coming out to look at it - so how do I go about recovering the data before they come, what's the easiest way to do this?

thekooman

get a 3.5 inch harddrive enclosure (something like this, http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=331339 but make sure its compatible with your drive, take the harddrive out of the pc and pop it in the enclosure.
then back it up to a different PC via USB and put the harddrive back into the old pc.
should be able to get an enclosure like this in maplins or somewhere local i would think. hope this helps or gives you some ideas.

Noviceman

is it possible to take the disk drive out of the pc and put it into another pc, boot it up and get the data on a usb stick or dvd?

Capt'n Midnight

varistor surge protectors have a finite life and once it's been zapped offers no more protection
if it's plugged in then it is protecting all the time and so wears out

get one of the strip sockets with two lights, the other letting you know when the protector is worn out and switch off at the wall / unplug the socket when not in use to get max life

surges also travel up the network card and modem cables and they are far worse than ones on the mains line.

once the system has been subjected to higher voltage then all components are stressed and not worth repairing

hopefully the drive will work but if not then plan B is to find another drive of the same make / model / firmware revision and try the motherboard from it, but if the old drive had a head crash it will probably kill the new motherboard too if you let
try the mother board for a few seconds but if it's constantly seekiing or you have ball bearing dropping sounds then not good.