[geeks] Whee! Lightning strikes, AGAIN!

[Lionel Peterson]

On Jul 29, 2009, at 12:20 PM, Barry Keeney <barryk at chaoscon.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Jul 2009, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>>
>> I think my hardware was killed by an EMP, because the computers work
>> fine, except the NICs - every NIC (save one, so far) that had a wire
>> of any length attached to it is DEAD. A power surge would have taken
>> out the computer AND the NIC, but that didn't happen. The two TVs  
>> that
>> were hit are CRTs, the flat panels (actually rear projection and
>> plasma) are fine. I suspect the CRT somehow "collected" enough energy
>> to kill the set. The garage door opener and A/C controller had
>> electronics that weren't very well protected (compared with, say, a
>> sealed up, grounded, PC chassis).
>
>  It could be that the flat panels have better power supplys that
> protected them more then the (older?/cheaper) CRT TV's.

Possible, but I like my theory ;^)

>> The dead switches, router, and cable modem all power on, but have  
>> dead
>> NIC ports, again, discounting the idea a power surge came in the  
>> power
>> line in my mind.
>
>  Well it's still possible that the surge entered from the power grid
> and moved to the network devices via a poorly designed device(s)  
> (switch,
> router, etc) that allowed the surge passed it's power supply to the
> network cables.

Wouldn't a lethal surge take out the system that took the hit? All I  
lost were NIC ports, the WAN and ETH1 ports on my router, the LAN port  
on the cable modem, and *only* the switch ports that had wires died...

>  But this got me thinking, If EMP caused the problems then the phone
> wires in your house would have been effected as well.

Dunno, wireless phones.

Lionel