Lightning hosed NICs and router. Best way to prevent this in future?

[pantichd]

Hello,

We had some pretty heavy storms here the other day with lots of lightning. It really did a number on the pcs, laptops, xbox, etc. in the house.

It "fried" the NICs of all the computers connected to the network whether they were turned on or not. It also seems to have hosed the linksys router and the power supply on the xbox and one of the PCs.

I'm slowly recovering from it by replacing parts but I don't want to go through this again.

Looking for suggestions, feedback on others' experience with similar situation. What have you done to minimize the chance of this happening again.

Let's just get it out of the way now I know I can unplug them but that's not always realistic. Sometimes I might be away from home and not know that it's going to storm. And I don't want to have to unplug everything each time I leave the house.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

David.

 

[vanka25]

The first order of business would be to get quality surge protection for all of your sensitive equipment. Most surge protection manufacturers have an equipment replacement policy (you'll have to check how much they cover) if your equipment "fries" while using their product; I haven't actually had to make use of said policies so I can't vouch for how easy/hard it is to obtain reimbursement. I would suggest that you all sensitive equipment plugged into a surge protector; this would include routers and other equipment that you consider expandable but that are connected to your sensitive equipment. This way if there is another power surge and your expandable equipment is protected form it and can't pass it on to any equipment that it's connected to.

 

[pantichd]

Most of it was plugged into surge protectors but they weren't quality ones (obviously), just ones you'd buy at your local hardware store.

I've been reading about this today and it seems that another way that things get affected is via the cable modem. It comes in thru there and travels thru the router and all the NICs.

But how the heck do you protect yourself from THAT?

 

[BadBigBen]

with one of these:

http://www.blackbox.com/Catalog/Detail.aspx?cid=425,1606,1607&mid=2003

but this should suffice aswell (but it is not as good as the above):

Belkin 12-Outlet Home/Office Surge Protector with Phone/Ethernet/Coaxial Protection and Extended Cord

http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-12-Outlet-Protector-Ethernet-Protection/dp/B000HPX46U

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[pantichd]

Cool. Is it safe to assume that I could plug the ethernet cable coming out of my cable modem into the in-line surge protector and then plug that into my router?

That seems to be the best way to protect all the pcs from any spikes coming through the ethernet cables.

Thanks for the links

 

[vanka25]

Is it safe to assume that I could plug the ethernet cable coming out of my cable modem into the in-line surge protector and then plug that into my router?

You can do that, but then your cable modem would still be susceptible to power surges. There are surge protectors available that also offer surge protection for incoming phone lines and coax cable.

 

[wahnula]

Well, here's my opinion from recent experience: you're on your own. Good luck getting any of that "guaranteed" cash. Although I've never tried, I would imagine dealing with their insurance company (that's who holds the policy) would be somewhat like getting a root canal. Think of the horror stories that involved "extended warranties" to get a sense for this.

Recently, I lost a router and a PSU to power quirks. Both were connected to surge protectors and in one case the UPS/surge protector actually caused the damage, by not being able to supply enough juice to safely shut down the PC...it ran out of juice and took the PSU with it.

The other outage, on another occasion, I'm not sure exactly what happened, but the router was on a (different) UPS/surge protector and still got smoked.

Surge protectors do "wear out" but the devices don't offer any indication when this happens or is about to happen. Unless you have a true online UPS or spend for a commercial unit like this article recommends, you're not getting proper protection from consumer units.

I'm on the fence whether it's worth it or not to spend $300-500 to get a decent UPS/surge protector for my PC. I have one on my Home Theater setup and it's never taken any gear out (yet!) but if I spent that kind of $$$ for every PC and outboard gear I want to protect it would cost thousands.

I'll just replace the parts when they go. Not that you shouldn't have a quality UPS on all your gear, of course you should, but it's just not practical or cost-efficient for me. Anything that costs less than ~$300 is probably no better than a circuit-breaker surge-protecting power strip.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[edfair]

If there is a strike close enough you will still lose everything you lost before and the surge suppressors too.

You could help the NIC problem with grounded metallic conduit but that isn't feasible except for new installations.



Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[wahnula]

Just to elaborate, I have been running PCs since the mid-90's and never experienced any problems until recently. And most of the time there was little if any protection.

It's the luck of the draw if and when most users will become affected, but there are certain situations that can happen that will be beyond the capabilities of consumer-grade protection gear.

The $300 figure I used was for UPS/surge protectors. Both of mine that caused problems were ~$150 APC units, with protection for the cable line and phone line (although I use VoIP), and still they weren't up to the task. My lesson learned is to buy quality pro gear, not consumer gear, if you want to be safe (err, safer).

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[pantichd]

Thanks everyone for all your replies.

I agree with the posts about insurance. I've already been dinged by them for another claim. It's amazing that you pay all that money into it but when you want to actually USE it for what it's intended for they raise your rates. So we've basically decided that we're using insurance for catastrophes only and upped our deductibles really high.

Also, I kind of suspected this but the replies confirmed it, it seems that it's just about impossible to totally prevent this from happening again short of always unplugging everything during storms.

I've just ordered this surge protector for each of the PCs

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812120401

and this one for the cable modem and router and PC that's right next to them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812120232

Odds are in my favor now. This is the first time I've ever been hit by this so maybe it won't happen again (fingers crossed)

Thanks again for all your replies.

 

[wahnula]

I like Cyberpower. I have one of their UPSs on my office server and their large rackmount one in my home A/V system. Their UPS (not what you bought) has a better software control than APC's Power Chute and everything that I have connected to their devices has been good so far.

The Cyberpower surge protector that you bought has an auto-shutdown feature that I really like.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[docjohn52]

Let me start with 35 years with the phone company -

We use ground bars and power plants the size of school buses, and surround buildings with ground fields with CAD welded ground bars every ten feet...

We use shielded cable, bonded to ground, and certified to resistance readings, and then fuse the individual cable pairs at each end -(thats the little box on the back of your house - there's one in the switchroom too.)

And the one thing I can definately tell you about lightning, NOTHING stops it...

It can jump out of the side of a wire, go through a block wall, and hit a car in the parking lot... And turn your UPS, Surge Suppressor, your CPU, phone, television, your plumbing, and yes your car into smoking slag...

You got off easy...

 

[BadBigBen]

I agree there Doc, lightning is almost unstoppable, unless you are in a Faraday cage, and your home/business network is completely contained therein...

surge suppressors and the like (ups), are usually only good when you have a fluctuating power lines where it can spike for short periods of time, e.g. brown outs, etc.

I've never needed a surge suppressor until I came to the US, in AZ and TX I didn't really need it, since the computer equipment I had at that time (mid 80's) was a lot more robust to surges and brownouts then today, now in GA, early 90's, I did have to have one hooked up to my PC but not to my 220v computer system (ran off the 240v line in my washroom)...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."