Lightening Strike!

[yanman77]

Recently in the UK we had an electrical storm and lightening hit my telephone line. The current managed to kill my router and also travel to my PC and pretty much buggered it.

My computer wont boot i keep getting a cmos error coming up. I have tried to erase the cmos but still it comes with the error. Sometimes i can get into the bios and everything seems to be recognised as in hard drives, optical drives, processor etc. It just wont boot to windows and sometimes comes up with system boot error.

Can anyone tell me what i can do or is the motherboard gone?

Thanks

 

[waylander]

That sounds bad, if you are using on board lan then my guess is it fried something on your motherboard. Make sure that you use a high end power bar what has phone in and out to protect everything. All the utilities in my area are underground so I don't worry too much about that sort of thing but I still have everything going through my power bar anyway.

 

[yanman77]

Thanks for you reply mate. Yeh i sort of guessed something had to have been scrambled, but wanted a second opinion on it. Loks like another board for me and try and get it on the house insurance.

So i need a power bar? What does one of those look like?

Thanks Again

 

[doormatderek]

He was saying you need some sort of surge protector, which is always a good idea. Have you tried booting with your windows disc? just curious if you've gotten anywhere else besides the bios..?

 

[waylander]

Yes, sorry I did mean surge protector (although even basic power bars have some surge protection).

I know you don't have access to newegg but here is what i mean.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812249004

notice the ports in the middle for everything from your phone line, cable (tv or internet) to your power outlets.

The better ones offer warranties as well, some cover $10,000 if they fail. So if your computer, tv, dvd player... etc are plugged into it and blow after a surge the company will replace them.

 

[p05esto]

I've now lost 3, ye 3 routers due to power storms and I have a $100 surge protector.

I think what I need to try next is a UPS that cleans the power and not just block surges. It seems even the smallest surge kills routers quickly. I'm also going to unplug my system during every storm from now on. Surge protectors are not on my happy list right now....

 

[windego]

That storm was the worst i have experienced ever!

My pc went off about 6 times, then i decided it would be a good idea to turn off all electrical stuff. Glad i did now, otherwise all my stuff would have probably fried.

I have a linksys wireless router and it managed to survive it (forgot to turn it off during storm as it was down stairs). However, it did blow a fuse in my logitech z-5500 subwoffer before i turned everything off (luckly i had a timed 2 amp fuse in garage ).

When i build new conroe system i'm going to get surge protection and uninterruptable power supply.