Blew Up!

[bkehoe]

Everything is going wrong for me at the moment! Hopefully my luck will increase when the K7 comes.

Here are the headlines [img]/forum/biggrin.gif[/img]:

K7 fails to arrive when schedules - Friday 24th September

Freak lightning bolt destroys computer room - Saturday 25th September.

A massive charge came from no-where in the form of a lightning bolt at 15:32PM BST through my ISDN line. Blows ISDN modem which goes on fire and continues on into my main computer - Celery 504A and blows teh motherboard and possibly everythign else, including my data!

That means no more RC5 blocks from me till either I can get time to buy new parts or the K7 arrives. I have sold my other system to help finance the K7 and to make room for it, so the only thing I have capable of doing RC5 blocks is my K6-233 laptop, which I am typing on now, but I haven't got the RC5 client configured for it and don't think it would be wise to destroy my laptop's battery with 100% CPU usage.

BTW, not as important, but it also gave me a fair shock as I was fiddling with network cables at my laptop - good thing the laptop wasn't connected to the network at the time, ehh? [img]/forum/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/forum/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forum/frown.gif[/img]

Anyone elses computer equipment get destroyed by lightning? Hmm, wonder if I can get the phone company to pay for bad phone lines. [img]/forum/smile.gif[/img]

Brendan

[bkehoe]

Sure does suck.

I don't know.....

I think it hit a satellite dish outside the window which currently isn't used, and the current transferred into the ISDN wire which is right beside the satellite dish's wire (outside on the house wall) which proceeded into the ISDN decoder box (which is earthed) and for some reason it didn't stop there and went on to my ISDN modem (external) and proceded into Serial Port 1 in my computer which was the last time my motherboard saw daylight. [img]/forum/frown.gif[/img]

My monitor survived, but there is a chip blown off my TNT card and the network card is unrecognisable as the main chip on it has split open.

The expected state of my SB Live and Hauppauge WinTV card isn't looking too good.

You have a good point there Virus. Thank goodness the K7 system didn't come!
And my parents aren't that happy as insurance may not cover it, but if it does it's not that bad, but my desk is half burned where the ISDN modem was and there is a terrible smell in the room.


Brendan.

[Virus]

It's actually lucky that you K7 didn't come. Or else it would have died a horrible death with everything else.

What was the lightning attracted to? A monitor, computer, phone line, or just the whole room?

I bet your parents are quite pissed. Is everything covered by insurance?

[Mntsnow]

Thats S*cks! [img]/forum/frown.gif[/img]

I hope that your insurance will cover the damages. and I hope your K7 arrives soon! [img]/forum/biggrin.gif[/img]

Mntsnow

[BMF]

Boy, that must really suck.
I've never heard of anything like that ever happening before.
It sounds like it's something that warranties might cover, have you tried sending the parts to the manufacturers?

[NoCtrl]

Was everything hooked up to a surge protector? My surge protector's warranty states that they "will repair or replace, for the life of the product, any properly connected equipment that has been damaged by an AC surge (including lightning strikes) up to a value of $15,000)." Anyone ever get any money out of one of these warranties?

[bkehoe]

Well the system was on an APS backup/surge protection system, but the surge didn't come through the power lines.....

I thought a surge couldn't come in through my ISDN (e.g. lightning) as the thing (forget the name) in which I plug the cable which goes to the modem has a plug and an earthing cable on it.

They even put an earth cable on the telephone pole outside the house when the ISDN was installed, but there 2 earthsystems aparrantly didn't work as I have an expensive junk pile on my desk. [img]/forum/frown.gif[/img]

Well at least I wan't killed that's the good point.

I rang my dealer, who said it wouldn't be worth trying to send back the products as 'broken' as the companies do test them. The warranty conditions on any of my cards damaged states that Acts of God are not covered.

Lightning seems attracted to this house! 2 years ago it blew all our phones and 2 TVs and burnt some carpet where a phone wire was joined with another.

Brendan.

[izzzy12k]

It sounds like it's your phone system in your house. I would look into buying one of those surge protector/trip switched phone line protectors.

At least you are ok! [img]/forum/smile.gif[/img]

-Izzzy12k

[800XL]

At least call the phone company. They may do something for you. The power company is usually more friendly in repaying for lightning damage, but it is worth a shot.

[Prospero]

At least yours was an act of God. I blew my BE6 about a month ago by trying to build a system on no sleep. I hooked a hot power lead to my HD led pins by mistake, fried the drive controler with much smoke. Not a good thing. I'm thinking of ordering one of the new via pro plus boards for a try, which is the only thing keeping me from completing a second system for file storage and RC5. Anyone try one yet? Hope you get your Athlon soon.

Jason

[U-96]

I'd like to see your insurance company prove an "Act of God" in a court of law to avoid payment. Last I heard, lightning was more to do with positive and negative ions floating around in air currents in the middle atmosphere. But I suppose proving that could be tough too unless you work for CERN or MIT [img]/forum/smile.gif[/img]

If your ISDN system was supposed to be earthed, then I think your issue is with the telecom company that appears to have inadequately installed it.

U-96

[This message has been edited by U-96 (edited 09-27-99).]

[bdog]

Check this link out for info on preventing something like this from happening again. www.lightningrods.com

[This message has been edited by bdog (edited 09-27-99).]