Lightning Killed my PC and Internet.

I'm typing on my Windows XP notebook using a Straight Talk Hotspot for internet. I don't recommend either. Big Thunderstorms and Tornado warnings in the area yesterday and there was a bright flash, power blinked off and on and I heard a "pop" from the area of my desk.

I have terrible internet service thru AT&T (U-Verse) and my PC was an ancient Dual Xeon (X5460) server (about 10 years old, but still managing to run most games). Both are gone and I think a local cell-tower took the hit as well since my 4G was taking minutes to load a web page. The PC is blinking a code for 'pre-video' failure -fried motherboard and my router won't power up. The line for my internet is snaked through trees, then buried across a neighbor's yard. It goes out and requires a service call a couple times a year - generally a five business day wait for service. I'm hoping that this time it's just my router.

What I did... Life without internet is strange. I was starting to freak out. I *HAD* to get re-connected. My youngest daughter has an 'unlimited' phone plan on Verizon that works pretty well for her with a WIFI hotspot to run her Amazon devices and stream some TV. I drove through the flooded streets to Walmart and asked for a no-contract WIFI Hotspot. At first, the sales associates tried to talk me out of it "They're not very good... You'll burn through that data in one day...", but they saw my desperation, shut up, and pulled one from the glass case. 2 GB of data included and another 4 GB on a card. That should get me into next week anyway if I ration my Firestick TV carefully. I went on eBay and bought a used router for under $20 and a 'not quite as old' PC for about $200. If that works as expected, it will get me back to where I was before the lightning strike - Hoping that my GTX 1060 will fit and be powered in that box.

What I still should do... A few years ago I tried to get cable internet, but they said that they don't have a line into my cul-de-sac and would not do it. I think it's time to try that again. Rural areas around me have fiber. Why is it that in town all I can get is DSL over an ancient phone line? For a PC I think I'm going to get one of the recommended rigs from the Lil Stampie PC thread unless my eBay PC turns out to be awesome.

That sucks.  For what it's worth lighting failures like that are usually a result of the power entrance ground and the utility entrance ground not being bonded together.

Had that happen this summer. Lightening strike hit our house and the printer and router right beside me blew up. It also melted all the underground cable in a large area around our house which meant two weeks with no Wi-Fi and all the streets dug up around my house. The damage was very impressive.

I killed my previous desktop PC by accidentally static discharging on it when I touched the power button in the middle of a very cold winter. It was one of those discharges that is so strong it's surprisingly painful. 

We can rebuild him. We have the technology.

My daughter drove through those storms yesterday.  She is going on a service trip to Taos, NM from the University of Missouri.  They (nine of them) stayed in OK City last night.  She said they had tornado warnings from the OK line to Tulsa.

We have fiber internet here in our neighborhood.  Local internet company got the contract to run it across rural areas of MO.  They were going right by our neighborhood so we got hooked up.  Most excellent.  We get the lowest speed at 100 Mbps and it's MUCH faster than the old DSL ver phone lines.

Tough luck on the strike. BTDT and replace almost every appliance in the house.

I just picked up this for $579  Periphio Gaming Desktop

Intel i5, 8gig, 128SSD, 1T HD, GeForce GTX 1650. It runs very well so far.

Mostly bought for 3d modeling but it runs games nicely as well. My sons are trying to steal it from me. 

Toyman01 said:

Tough luck on the strike. BTDT and replace almost every appliance in the house.

 

I just picked up this for $579  Periphio Gaming Desktop

Intel i5, 8gig, 128SSD, 1T HD, GeForce GTX 1650. It runs very well so far.

Mostly bought for 3d modeling but it runs games nicely as well. My sons are trying to steal it from me. 

 

Any ideas what motherboard is in there? I'd think all that system needs is some more RAM.

In reply to clutchsmoke :

And what processor it is. I5s have been around for 10 years. Which generation of i5 is important. 

Edit: i5 Sandy bridge 2400 from 2011. I see why they aren't advertising that. Whichever motherboard it's using is old enough for lga 1155. 

In reply to clutchsmoke :

No clue. This one:

I did order a few more sticks of ram to bring it up to 32 gig. 

Get a UPS to protect your new box.

Yikes! I recently built my first PC and this thread is making me nervous. Hope the Ebay rig works well!

Whole house surge protectors are pretty inexpensive; sometimes cheaper than "fancy" plug-in strips.  Well worth the investment to avoid having to replace an appliance.

Had this happen back in August/September of 2018. A lightning strike nearby killed some things in our house, very randomly.

The modem and the router were plugged into the same power strip. The router died, the modem lived. 
The PS4 and all things in the living room plugged into the same Panamax surge protector.......TV/Sub/Receiver/Turntable......all survived. The PS4 died. 
One smoke detector went AWOL. 
The board in the garage door opener fried and popped the circuit in the garage, but didn't impact anything else plugged into outlets on that circuit.

In about 1972 lightning hit the TV antenna  just outside my bedroom.  Killed every electronic device in the house...Well, the TV quit working.  Melted the wire from the antenna to the lightning arrestor.

Smelled ozone.  A lot.  Not very loud, though, being right in the middle of it.

I'm back online. I made some changes to my service. I had DirecTV and AT&T U-Verse. I now have Dish TV and HughesNet. So far, after two days, I'm pretty happy with the change. Overall my cost is about $15 more a month.

I thought that I was going to be able to get cable internet and TV. The local office sent a tech out to survey my access. There are three lines that end near my lot and they all end too far away to hook me up - too much cable droop and too long a line for a good signal. The tech was a guy that I had met before and we had a long chat about cars. He had wanted to buy one of my old Honda Del Sols years ago. Quite a car guy who between him and his brother have about 35 cars - some to flip, some for parts. I invited him to check out GRM.

So, the ATT U-Verse speed has always been terrible, supposed to be up to 6 Mbps , but usually speed tested to half that. Streaming movies would be low resolution and sometimes stop to buffer. That's the fastest plan they have available at my address. The HughesNet is advertised at 25 Mbps, but tested above 35 when I checked. The drawback with Hughes is that the plan I got provides 30 GB of 'peak time' service (an additional 50 GB from 2 AM to 8 AM) after that the speed is throttled back for the rest of the billing cycle. That almost drove me away until I realized that the Throttled speed is equal or better than what I had with ATT. Other problem is upload lag. Many online games need low latency and my HughesNet tested out to between 375 to 600 ms. Playable for some games, but certain death in anything competitive. Maybe my grandkids will play outside more when they visit.  

I don't see much difference between the DirecTV and Dish, and Dish is a little cheaper with one more TV than we had before.

Shipping on the computer is slow. It's due to arrive on Monday. For now the old notebook is good enough, but I'm looking forward to getting everything set back to normal.

We are dumping U-Verse because of poor service. One minute we would be getting 30 mbps. Then it would gradually decrease until we called and complained. They could never find the problem but it would magically start working at 30+ again. 

Xfinity ran a new line to the house Thursday and their system is going in today. It should give us between 75 and 100 mbps. 

Toyman01 said:

We are dumping U-Verse because of poor service. One minute we would be getting 30 mbps. Then it would gradually decrease until we called and complained. They could never find the problem but it would magically start working at 30+ again. 

Xfinity ran a new line to the house Thursday and their system is going in today. It should give us between 75 and 100 mbps. 

 

We dropped Uverse for the same reasons. Really frustrating. Cast is so much faster and consistent.

So, just finished installing the Xfinity gear. Speeds are 222.7 mbps down and 21.2 up.

That's about 14 times faster than ATT was averaging. 

Been there, done that, rinse and repeat. It's the main reason we no longer have a desktop pc and our laptops stay unplugged at all times unless using them. We also have the phone line routed through a surge protector, then a second surge protector to the modem/router combo. Overkill? Nope. There used to be a metal clothes line pole 10' away from that corner of the house that was a lightning rod. It would nail it and kill that corner of the house. Bad enough I have had to replace the breaker for that room. That pole is gone but we still don't risk it. A few billion joules of energy surging into the ground 10' from the place where all your internets come in is bad juju.