Lightning strike

[General Septem]

As the title suggests, I have a question about lightning strike. What effects can it have on the computer? How can I adequately protect my system in the event of a thunderstorm? Thanks.

[SeanDude05]

Just like the effects of lightning on any other piece of electronics. It can fry it good and turn it into scrap. Just get a surge protector that has a high jules rating and you'll be ok.

[red930]

And of course one that has a $50,000 guarantee, or more. Shouldn't need to spend more than 30-50 bucks for a decent name-brand one.

[Guest Kobalt]

Then again, a full strike will fry EVERYTHING in your house, and no little surge protector is going to stop it.

 

I rather get a UPS with AVR, than one of those cheap surge protectors.

 

Oh, and read the fine print on those "guarantees" sometimes. They make you jump through a million hoops before they pay out.

[red930]

Don't forget, it's the strike down the street that does the damage that you don't see right away.

 

The voltage and current spike will find it's way away from the source via every wire. That means you could have your modem, network or power take a spike even though you don't know it's happened.

 

Sometime days or weeks later the device will fail without notice and there's no way for you to connect the two instances.

 

A prime example is a law office that got hit. The strike came into their office over the telephone lines. It took out their phone-switch then jumped into the DSL modem then into the router then into the network switch then into every single computer and network printer.

 

The strike killed half the computers immediately. The rest of the network devices were killed. Over the next two weeks every other printer and computer had to be replaced.

 

Now if the spike hadn't been so damaging right off the bat, they might never have known what caused all the failures.

[red930]

The rest of the network devices we killed.

 

Ok, this is a little confusing???

[G-Code]

The best protection is to unplug your gear include the phone line from the modem if you know a storm is coming.

 

Bruce

[Guest SuppA-SnipA]

surge protector and or a ups is enough

[General Septem]

I see. What kind of UPS would you use for a PC? It's not actually something I'm too worried about but it's jsut something I was wondering about.

[shatteredsteel]

I use an APC UPS with a 1500VA Rating, but I use that for multiple computers if you're only using it for one computer then a 500-700 VA model will do...and a phone line/ethernet surge/spike arrestor is always a good plan of action.

[General Septem]

Thanks.

 

I use wireless internet, so I think that would be safe.

 

See, what I originally thought was that lightning damage would only affect the PSU, and the rest of the computer would be fine. But then I started to wonder if that were really the case.

[Guest caffeinejunkie]

Thanks.

 

I use wireless internet, so I think that would be safe.

 

See, what I originally thought was that lightning damage would only affect the PSU, and the rest of the computer would be fine. But then I started to wonder if that were really the case.

 

Well if lets say a power surge hit the psu and it wasnt able to surpress it then it could easily cook every last component in your rig. It happened to one of my older computers when a transformer blew in my neighborhood and we had a brown out. Cooked my entire rig and microwave but the electric company payed for it all.