Lightning Damage

deepspeed

Dunno if this is the right place but...

After a recent lightning storm, came down to find PC had mysteriously switched on by itself (of course I didnt disconnect power cord or telephone cord... :rolleyes: )

Nothing showing on screen... No smells of burning etc

Can switch on the PC, but thats as far as it goes, appears to be no hard drive activity bar the initial self-tests, tried replacing GFX card, same story..

So anyone with any experience in this field?? Am I talking about replacement CPU, MoBo, or actually it probably could be anything couldnt it....

Anyone?

BioHazRd

The first thing I would try is the power supply. After that, you could be lookin at a new mobo.

Bio

deepspeed

well, the pc powers on, and delivers power (i.e. I can open/close the CDROM drive) so Im assuming the P/S is working...

And the little LED on the mobo lights up when the power cord is plugged in...

BioHazRd

Yeah, but I recently had a problem with my psu (not lightning related) and I was getting all the correct lights etc.
The PSU was still b0rked

Bio

RicardoSmith

Remove/disconnect all your components and then try it with the minimum need to boot. Then add the stuff back on by one. Lightning causes weird stuff to happen. It can damage all sorts of gear and stuff will act up because of it. Lost a few bits and pieces myself to it. Mainly motherboards though.

BigEejit

If you have an internal modem it may be fubar (most likely component to go I'd say, PSU after that), I'd say do what RicardoSmith said to do though ...

spooky donkey

A friend of mines got fried in by lightining and the whole machine was dead! Even the ram went into the bin! But like the guys said try one thing at a time!

toil

Yea it can be different every time,
this happened a little while ago to a machine i have,
the memory,modem,cpu....were all ****ed.
Dont know about motherboard,
but everything else was ok


Normally after lightening the modem gets ****ed any whay cos the phone line is plugged in.


toil

RicardoSmith

I had one machine that died after a power surge/lightning strike. Tried everything but couldn't get it working. Then about a month later I was going to bin it and just checked it one last time and it started working! The AGP slot was fried though, but stock a PCI card in it and its been fine ever since.

Inspector Gadget

...I've seen the scenario described by BigEejit a few times... twice for the same guy (!) (with different computers - one Gateway PIII, one Dell P4) with two different-brand internal modems. Case status LEDs come on, fans start, no graphics, no hard disk activity. Switched 'em off, pulled out the modem, switched 'em on again, and off they went...

HTH
Gadget

Ronan|Raven

If the machine has an internal modem then remove it and check it for any burn marks or melted components etc. Over the least 3 weeks here we have had many machines in with severly melted modems but the rest of the componetns got off scot free, apart from the two where the modem went on fire

Inspector Gadget

...exactly. Bear in mind that some internal modems (especially older ones) have plastic covers on parts of them - you'll have to take these off to ensure things are okay. In addition, some components can go to the great electronics workshop in the sky without showing signs of physical damage, so try removing the modem even if you can't see any damage on the outside to see if it lets the PC boot.

Also check for scorch marks in the mobo slot you just took the modem out of - as PCI slots are (generally) white, grey/black scorch marks on it or on the gold-plated contacts should be obvious under close scrutiny with a flashlight or similar.

Gadget

elexes

over the last 8 months ive seen many a lightning damage . each one varies there but modem first then pci slot on the mobo then it moves onto everything from what ive seen .

one house everything went tv's radio's everything

BigEejit

Heh ... I used to work for a company more than a decade ago and we got a contract to fix broken phones from eircom ... eircom had literally tens of thousands of broken phones ... what was gone in 99.9% of them? a little chip that blew if the voltage went high - as in a lightning strike (worked most times, sometimes the tracks (traces) on the board would be fried as well though) ... we heard of one exchange in the midlands that was hit ... it fried more than three thousand phones... all in one go!

Ruu_Old

happened to me a while ago, removed the power but forgot the phone line. Had to get the modem and mobo replaced. Is there anyway to protect the surge coming thru like that..i mean thru a phone line?

Woden

as far as i know there is surge protectors for phone lines as well, i recall my uncle telling me a story about how someone he knew got a surge protector however never got one to protect the phone line and i think a power surge or lightning strike fried the modem.

the surge protector i think is pretty standard just like a normal one cept you plug you phone line in one bit and back out another to protect your modem, i will have a look around for some links.

Woden

eh go to page 79 of the new argos catalog anyway theres some there for about €30

heres one of them

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/commerce/command/ExecMacro/ols_prod_detl.d2w/report?hopper=CatSrch

RicardoSmith

Theres loads of them. But make sure to get a surge protector with a IRL/UK phone socket. Most of the ones I see have US connectors for some bizarre reason.

Inspector Gadget

FWIW, Ireland and the US both use the same type of phone plugs and sockets; it's the UK that's different.

Gadget.

spongebob

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Theres loads of them. But make sure to get a surge protector with a IRL/UK phone socket. Most of the ones I see have US connectors for some bizarre reason.

Jayzus Ricardo

Does US lightning strike at a different voltage to Irish Lightning.?

US kit is what we use for analogue phones here.

M

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Muck
Jayzus Ricardo

Does US lightning strike at a different voltage to Irish Lightning.?

US kit is what we use for analogue phones here.

M

Smart ass (But you're right though) We use the US connector the US RJ-11. The surge protectors I've seen have the british connector BT431A. Its a pain to have to use adapters, so make sure you find one that has the US/IRL connector. Heres a link that shows you all the connectors that are in use.

elexes

go to pc superstore its abotu 40 quid its got 5 ports and its got a 2-3k warrienty with the phone adaptor www.pcsuperstore.ie

made by surgemaster and sitecom

spongebob

I'd prefer to put it outside the house.

The last fry up I saw was a Highspeed Box (gone) and an ISDN TA (gone) last week. It was an external ASUS TA so the Computer was OK . A neighbour got hit too but the ASUS survived in her case.

A breaker fuse of some sort outside the house would have saved all the grief be it an Analogue line or a Highspeed line.

Eircom Line voltage is 48v DC (correct me if I'm wrong) . There are gizmos ya can get from the US which should work fine here as the current is 48v DC there too.

It is right to assume that your line is hit once a year on the western seaboard and less as you move east.

Here is some
Science on the matter and here is the Statistical data for 1990 to 1997 ....... Black is Baaaaaaaaad News.

Here is where the nearest lightning is at this very moment on Wetterzentrale in 24 Hour rolling format.

Inspector Gadget

Originally posted by Muck
It is right to assume that your line is hit once a year on the western seaboard and less as you move east.

That sounds a bit too frequent to me... once every three years (or less) is more like it, I would have thought?

Gadget

STaN

any1 lost a hard drive in one? or can this happen?

if you dont have a modem, can a surge protector save your ass?

spongebob

Galway gets hit every 2 years or less 1995 1998 1999 2002 and 2003 were all bad with at least 1 major electric storm each. The 1995 one was the Galway Races thunderstorm live on telly in July.

The 2002 one was in Jan and the 2003 one was in March.

The number of people with ISDN and Internal Modems in 1995 .....as compared to 2003 ......was much lower.

The 2002 and 2003 storms caused a lot of damage.

My point abouit assumming a strike every year IN RURAL AREAS ON THE WESTERN SEABOARD was that you should then plan accordingly.

A €50 surge protector makes sense in this context, the excess on your home insurance is around €300 or so.

Surges are not as great a risk in Clontarf or in Cabinteely where the kit is Underground

any1 lost a hard drive in one? or can this happen?

Yes it can , generally something else goes first like a modem , mobo, psu or fuse

if you dont have a modem, can a surge protector save your ass?

If your PC is not connnected to any phone line of any sort then a combi surge protector (all of earth live and neutral protected) will save you .

Many surge protectors are Live only which saves you in many circumstances but not all.

Inspector Gadget

Originally posted by Muck
Galway gets hit every 2 years or less 1995 1998 1999 2002 and 2003 were all bad with at least 1 major electric storm each. The 1995 one was the Galway Races thunderstorm live on telly in July.

The 2002 one was in Jan and the 2003 one was in March.

The number of people with ISDN and Internal Modems in 1995 .....as compared to 2003 ......was much lower.

The 2002 and 2003 storms caused a lot of damage.

My point abouit assumming a strike every year IN RURAL AREAS ON THE WESTERN SEABOARD was that you should then plan accordingly.

Surges are not as great a risk in Clontarf or in Cabinteely where the kit is Underground

While I'm not looking to get into an argument on the subject, it's a bit of a stretch to go from saying that Galway (do you mean city or county?) gets hit every two years to saying that people on the western seaboard should expect their lines to get hit annually - don't you think? (not withstanding the fact that the statistical likelihood of every phone line in Galway (city or county) being knocked out by a single strike is practically zero)

As someone who was born and raised on the western seaboard, in Galway, in an area where all telephone and power cables have been underground for at least a decade, my parent's phone line was hit for the first time since the house was built, almost 23 years ago, just in the last fortnight... it tends to go against the annual strike theory.

(For the record, there were no fewer than three surge arresters between us and the strike - one on the pole, one where the line enters the house, and one a couple of feet from the socket - they still didn't help, as the lightning hit less than 100m from the house, taking out an underground ESB transformer and reducing a 270-pair copper cable and the fibre lines that were laid beside it (underground, I might add) to a charred lump of insulation lying in a twelve-odd foot long open trench, and the concrete transformer cap, something that's carried and fitted by three strong men, was blown through a couple of feet of soil and clean across the road)

While I accept that one isolated example isn't exactly a valid premise for a counter-proposal, you did overdo it a bit with your original statement.

I think I'd better shut up now and go to bed... I'm tired and that makes me pedantic...
Gadget

spongebob

Originally posted by Inspector Gadget
As someone who was born and raised on the western seaboard, in Galway, in an area where all telephone and power cables have been underground for at least a decade,

.... taking out an underground ESB transformer and reducing a 270-pair copper cable and the fibre lines that were laid beside it (underground, I might add) to a charred lump of insulation lying in a twelve-odd foot long open trench, and the concrete transformer cap, something that's carried and fitted by three strong men, was blown through a couple of feet of soil and clean across the road)

Very few lines in the west are underground, I was advising the majority.

Your individual account as to why one should be careful about lightning does tend to strengten my case. Ask people in Claregalway or Moycullen who have overground lines what their stats are on strikes.

M

Inspector Gadget

Originally posted by Muck
Very few lines in the west are underground, I was advising the majority.

Your individual account as to why one should be careful about lightning does tend to strengten my case. Ask people in Claregalway or Moycullen who have overground lines what their stats are on strikes.

M

While I wouldn't have put either Claregalway or Moycullen as being on a seaboard, that's just me being pedantic.

I have to say that one strike a year is pretty damn scary, if true...

FWIW, I'm led to understand that the lightning that hit our place was some extremely rare, highly localised variant... according to the few people who actually saw it (happened at ~4am). Nature would have to go out of her way to make absolutely sure

Gadget

spongebob

If your area is black on this map Here then my dire prognostication applies to you.

These stats are a 7 year snapshot.

There is a bit of a correlation between Granite and Black.

Look at the difference between Kildare and Galway for example.

Personally I know people who have seen their laptops explode, who have seen sparks flying out of their telephones and have met a woman who is deaf in one ear as she was talking on the phone when the line was hit.

Regrettably Met Éireann do not emphasise in their forecasts how careful one must be with devices plugged into phone lines.

M

Inspector Gadget

Good link... if the map was just a little (maybe 100x?) bigger, I'd be able to tell exactly whether I am or not

Gadget