Windows 8 Struck by lightning!

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi everyone.

Early today I was sitting at my computer while it was raining hard outside.
The dish TV had already gone down.

I heard thunder around but it didn't sound close.

Suddenly I heard a sound like someone hitting a table with a wooden yard stick. Whack!

I looked at my monitor and fortunately everything looked OK.

The the message came up "You have lost your Internet connection".

That,s when I smelled that ozone burning smell!

My computer was still running but when I looked behind my monitor at the router it was dark, not even the power light was on. I didn't see any smoke but there was a funny oily smell.

It was dead.

I called Comcast and they are sending a tech with a new and they tell me better unit tomorrow morning.

The next thing I did was to back up all the stuff I've been working on for the last few weeks.

Close call, it could have gotten my computer.

I,m posting this from my iPad.

Mike

 

[shaneblack]

Yeah I've seen alot of routers go bad from lighting, I know this guy who runs a pc shop and he has alot of them laying around which all have problems due to lighting. Some come on but don't work right. Lighting seems to like them, make sure your pc is grounded. If your electric company grounded your house then everything should be ok. Use three prong plugs and power surge protectors, I've went through many storms and never had problems this way. I even have a Yagi WIFI antenna which I used an old jumper cable for cars and clamped one end to the pole of the antenna and striped the other end, connected it to a metal stake and drove it into the ground so everything is grounded. Without that its just like a big lightning rode.
Grounds prevent lightning strikes by directing the hit away and into the ground, use these methods and you'll never have to worry unless its extremely bad weather, then its wise to just shut things off for awhile to be safe

 

[kemical]

I had this happen to me once. It wasn't even raining, just threatening to.. Suddenly I see a flash at the back of the pc resulting in my sound and modem getting knocked out. (this was still in the days of dial up modems) The sound I got working again but the modem was fried. I always made sure from then on to unplug from the wall during a storm.

 

[Saltgrass]

Some power boxes (strips and UPS) come with connections for cable to give it surge protection. I have never run mine through one, so I do not know if the extra connection would hinder the connection speed.

 

[shaneblack]

Some power boxes (strips and UPS) come with connections for cable to give it surge protection. I have never run mine through one, so I do not know if the extra connection would hinder the connection speed.

I don't know, I never ran cable through one either. The biggest threat is with dial-up and phone line connections, don't know why but alot of people report lightning strikes when using them. I've been safe when I had cable though, never been hit once. If I had a Wifi router though, I would use a surge protector as a precaution. Most routers only come in two prong adapters so a surge bar I think would be best, that way when a power surge from lightning comes though, it will trip the bar and stop any damage to your electronics plugged into the bar. It usually is a most when running TV's, Computers, and anything else you want to protect.

 

[swarfega]

Why was your router behind your monitor? I assume thats near the window?

I have all the cables that come from my computer connect to a surge protector so hopefully it should protect me from such events as these.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi Guys

I'm up and running again.

The Comcast guy couldn't get my PC to connect and deduced that the card was fried since the wireless was working but the PC saw nothing.

After he left I messed around with it and switched to another plug on the back of my computer.
The light on the router came on by the plug for the first time.

I still couldn't get it to connect but I've always had two options on the Internet Connection page.

Connection 1 and Connection 2, it's always used 2.

I went into device manager and disabled device 2 and enabled device 1.

I rebooted and then went into Network and Sharing Center and now I had two devices shown both named Device 2?

I disabled the one I had been using and enabled the new Device 2 and it started working.

My guess is that the Wireless adapter has 2 circuits built in, to connect 2 devices and one was blown and the other was still OK.

The wireless connection to our laptop is much stronger now.

My Router is behind my monitor because my monitor sits on a stand on the desktop with a space behind it that holds my 4 external drives, my speakers, and my Router.

My PC sits on the desktop next to it.
I don't like to set my computer on the floor, too much dirt and dust.
We have 2 Dogs and a Cat!

In the old days I always unplugged my phone line from my computer in storms, (after going through a lot of modems) I think I'll go back to doing that and at least unplug the network cable from the back of the router so I't isolated from my PC.

Mike