so my area well my city been hit with severe thunderstorm in the morning and it was like constant BANG and at one point there was a REALLY BIG bang which maybe hit my house and blackedout for a few seconds... i was sleeping but i still heard the thunder cause it was that loud and constant. Anyways when i woke up i tried connecting to the internet through wifi and couldn't find my router so i went to the top floor to see what's goin on and i see the power for the modem and router turned off and i was struggling to see if it was unplugged. Note that the room is filled with plugs and wires so it took me a while. After i unplugged the modem and router to plug into other outlets which did not work as well. I phoned my ISP and had to go to a kiosk to get a replacement which was flawless and got a new one. I just got off the phone with linksys and they said i was still under warranty but it will take about a week or so to get a router shipped to me. That was the important part because i need internet and theres like 3 comps and a hong kong phone which needs internet wire plugged into them and i need wireless for myself. So now basically only 1 computer can be plugged into the internet and it is on the top floor which sucks. Anyways because there is a few power bars on the top room, and a lot of outlets being used, when lightning hit, it fcuked up the power bars which let to fcuking up some of the electronice devices. What is now broken includes: modem, router, stereo, cordless phone, hong kong phone adapter, and a monitor. so pissed off the i gota buy these things again and i feel lucky having my 2 devices replaced but still pissed how it fcuked up the powerbars and i have to rearrange everything again. well the rooms arent' even mine but my cousin moved out last week so his room is being taken over by me. who would have thought thunder and lightning can do so much to a house....i know there's too much plugs and wires on the top floor but still why does this have to happen to me and not my neighbours
Gotta love mother nature. The storm was over here this morning as well. A few weeks ago my whole town blacked out for about 10 minutes.
it was thundering JUST now, while the sun was shinning all the way, ridiculous. my router was like urs weeks ago, so stupid!! no internet for 2 days that killed me ><''
"...who would have thought thunder and lightning can do so much to a house." I'm sorry for your loss. Many people don't really appreciate how powerful lightning can be. A direct strike can actually start fires and burn houses down; or blow them apart unless the structure is properly grounded, which is why lightning rods were invented. An indirect strike can still cause major damage to electronics and electrical wiring. You're lucky to have lived through it. Your Power Bars that got "fucked up" may have "saved" a lot of your other electronics to begin with. Many such power bars usually supply some sort of surge protection, and may have taken the brunt of the hit. IOW if they weren't there, a lot more of your stuff could have been destroyed. That said, electronics that have "survived" a lightning strike generally fall out of warranty, as they are no longer considered to be electrically safe or reliable. That is, even the computer that still works should be replaced as soon as possible, as they have become a possible fire or electrocution hazard. Moral of this story is, it was a lesson learned. If you're not using equipment, you need to unplug it from the outlet (not just turn it off). Note: The thunder (or noise made by lightning) does not affect anything other than startle people.
Holy shit, a thunderstorm is around here as well, and I can see certain areas are clear, just that huge dark cloud above my area... it happened to me too once, but by some stupid ass how was messing with the power lines in the building, it overloaded some how and it fried like a few stuffs...was so pissed, his answer was, we were trying to give this building more power for the air conditioners. Fools didn't even tell the people living here that they would be doing it, if they did, I would had unplug everything. <_<
should've gotten a surge protector like Dan said .. i don't have one but i don't have anything plug into the outlets at all and i shut off the power to the entire house when i leave the house. thunderstorm .. hmmm .. are you over in the north/northeast coast of the continent or what?
This happened to me once as well; my modem stopped working completely and router had problems right after... ISP stil charged me for a new modem .. but I got a new router (better model) free of charge. It was weird cause my neighbours had electricity cut off, but their electronics were workin fine, where as we had electronics problems but our lights didn't go out or anything.
i would recommend APC products (not only getting the surge protector but also a UPS: don't get those that says 375VA or whatever, those are useless, can't even keep a computer running for 5 mins, get the 900VA+); i have a computer system a couple yrs back that is connected to it and after the thunderstorm i went on claiming and back in a couple of weeks (even thou a lot of work has been done) i was valued more than the amount i paid for, no sweat; i wish i had more of those incidents; i claimed an LCD, a computers system with Pentium D back then, a printer, etc; best of all they didn't have to send the dead parts back; btw i was watching the thunderstorm live on the streets yesterday, it was awesome, appreciate what mother nature does and everyone's happy (great photos & new electronics); was also taking photos of the fireworks in the rainstorm too =) now that you are buying a new router (you can probably get the wireless N if you haven't got one yet), and you can send the old one in and get that as a backup, just in case another hits, the new ones dies and u will be preapred to the refurbished in your house after a week;
Just a word of caution; those surge protectors have capacitance ratings. That is, how much of a jolt (usually expressed in joules or amperes) it can "safely" absorb. If the surge exceeds the rated level of protection, your equipment will still get damaged. Degree of damage also depends upon how much of the lightning actually strikes your equipment. A entire lightning bolt is estimated to have anywhere from one billion to ten billion joules, though the actual current that makes in into your power line would likely be significantly less (unless it was a direct hit). Most of the current is dissipated into the surrounding air and ground area. Additionally, once a surge protector has been struck with a surge (ie. it gets used) the level of protection it continues to offer afterwards is dramatically decreased. So if you live in an area that experiences multiple lightning events a year, be prepared to buy lots of these things and change them with regular frequency. They're really just one shot deals. The best protection is always to have your equipment turned off, and unplugged. However, even this method is not 100% fool proof, as a close or nearby sudden surge in electrical power may create such a huge energy field that electrical current will still course through your equipment, even if they're not plugged in. In such a case, even surge protectors would be rendered useless. >.<
I did not know that. On the topic of surge protectors, rather than buying dozens of individual pieces of electronics, you can actually have a surge protector installed for your entire house. It's a more cost effective solution if you have lots of electronics.
i thought about surge protectors before but never expected this to happen and surge protectors are pricey too so i guess ill wait for the next dell deals to get one.... right now im still trying to replace everything that is broken and i just found out that my door bell and 3rd floor bell rn't working so i gota get those replaced too.... everything is just fcuked right now and i am so lazy........... well now im just gonna make sure things are unplugged during thunderstorms cause lightning strikes the same spot more than once it just sucks when you expect the unexpected but it is also a lesson..an expensive one though
