castledoom.com

[Batchman]

We got nailed by a direct hit Saturday, and while none of our computers and very little of our electronics got fried, the physical cable for our cable got evaporated, so I have no internet connection until Thursday at the earliest.

Just thought I'd pass word, I'll be back in a few days. (Typing this in at the library.)

[Brf]

Batchman wrote: the physical cable for our cable got evaporated

That happened to me a few years back.... before cable internet. The cable wasnt evaporated, but the section between the ground and the grounding wire looked like it had been chewed up by an animal. They ended up having to string a whole new underground cable for us because the whole underground section was toasted.

[JuntaJoe]

It's still wise to have a good back up.

I've been using backup power supplies for years with mixed reviews.

Most do little to deal with dirty power. You have to spend a few extra dollars. I'm really pleased with my new Cyberpower 825R. Lots of juice and line conditioning too. It gives me a good half hour even if I was running my printer too. It cost me around a hundred bucks. Comparable ones with line conditioning from APC can run several hundred. Mine did quite well in the consumer reviews. Best Buy sell my model if you get interested.

[Brf]

A power supply isnt going to protect you from lightning coming in the TV-cable though.

[FrankyG888]

Fortunitly I don't have to worry about lightening. I just got a shiny new Dell Notebook. They had quite a back to school sale going and I got a $1600 computer for just over $1000. Too bad the sale ended so soon.

[Brf]

FrankyG888 wrote: Fortunitly I don't have to worry about lightening.

How do you connext to the internet?

[FrankyG888]

I have a wireless connection which is very nice when it is working. Our whatever isn't very good so sometimes the signal strenth goes. Oh well, I guess that is the price of new technology. Sure, sometimes I feel like a guinea pig, but that means that I get some of the really great stuff first.

[Brf]

I have wireless here too. Four computers connect through my wireless router. The Cable still comes into the cable-modem and router though.

[FrankyG888]

Yes, but fortunitly the computer that it is hooked up to is a piece of junk that can be replaced by any number of halfbroken computers sitting in our basement and the router was the cheapest thing that we could find at Best Buy, so at most a loss of $200 and some really old data.

[broomdalf]

Bah, Batchman, that's what you get for living in Florida. Lightning, Hurricanes, and Sinkholes.

Why not come up here to Minnesota where all you have to deal with is the blistering cold, freezing rain, flash flooding, high taxes, and the occasional small wind storm, blizzard, or tornado?

I mean, it's not that hard to have to re-learn how to drive every winter...

[JuntaJoe]

Brf wrote: A power supply isnt going to protect you from lightning coming in the TV-cable though.

UPS with cable protection?

http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BH500NET

That one is for a home network. There are models in that line going up to 300 Watts.

http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE725JP

This one is an inexpensive one for a lone desktop.



They have many more with cable connections. And that's just at APC.

If you want cable protection before it hits your router/switch/network then most UPS companies can help you.

And if lighting smokes your cable hub then you get the insurance.

I found all this out from this story at the Overclockers Forum:

http://www.overclockers.com/articles937/


Nice site too. I'm putting the mainpage link in our Lab links.

[Brf]

Surge protection is for those occasional over-voltage conditions. They will do nothing for lightning.

[bannie]

Im with Brf, I dont know if a surge protector will do anything against 10-120 volts of electricity :shock:

[JuntaJoe]

This topic really needed to be moved to a relevant area.


Ok, a little logic is in order here about cable and phone connections on UPS's. These are low power connections not given to line surges. You just don't get a power surge from the sending source through a phone line or coax cable in normal operation, unlike electrical power. So what then is the reason for running them through the UPS if they don't fluxuate at the transmission source? That really only leaves lightning.

Regardless if you don't believe me, even though I did repair electronics for several years as part of my military career, there is the main issue of running them through a UPS. They become insured. One of the biggest reasons to own a UPS is that insurance. Did you read the article? The guy's cable equipment was fried. And the UPS company paid off.

A good UPS becomes a financial barrier for equipment past the UPS. Sure, it does nothing about Batchman's case, but that surge could have easily continued up the cable line.

[Batchman]

Actually, this thing came in through the cable, I am now almost sure.

Why?

Because of what we've lost.

Three television sets. All hooked up to cable.

When the cable guy came out and fixed the cable finally (strike was on Saturday, TWC couldn't bother getting anybody out until Thursday), he had to replace the cable modem. So instead of that neat shark fin, I now have a Terayon cable modem, which is a different freaky shape.

We also lost our router ($40 down the tubes) and the two computers that were hooked up to the internet at the time fried their ethernet connections. Fried.

The sad thing? One of the two computers was the brand new laptop that my landlord had bought Saturday afternoon. Had hooked it up to the internet to download a few protective programs (Scotty, AdAware, Spybot and the like) and set it up for e-mail so she could use it on the trip she left on this morning.

This nice, full-feature notebook was probably about a $1100-$1200 system, but since it was the last of the model the store had, and was the display model, they sold it to her for $750. Since it was the last one, she might be able to take it back and get her money back (Sam's Club has a really good return policy), but she can't replace it.

Also, my computer had its built-in ethernet connection fried. I am still not back on the net with my own computer ... tomorrow for that. I'm on the landlord's desktop system. Of course, I am told that fixing mine will be very easy. Install a $10 network card, add the drivers for it, plug into the new card instead of the built-in, and they say I ought to be back in full gear that easily.

Finally, though I have no idea how, we lost our printer. Not connected via ethernet, but before the lightning strike, it worked fine. Now, after the lightning strike, you can plug it in, but nothing reaches the actual machine.

As far as the televisions go, two of them work, but the colors are kind of funky. They might be fine, if they were just degaussed ... I don't know. One won't turn on at all.

The good news? They have absolutely incredible homeowners insurance here, and they are going to replace everything with no qualms whatsoever. They don't even want us to try to fix the televisions, but just buy new ones. They'll probably end up replacing the notebook with an equivilent model and so on.

My other thoughts?

These things plowed into the computers, burned out the network cards, but seem to have done no other harm. To me, this says the amount of current flowing through them may not have been all that large. Perhaps the use of a couple of surge protectors that include cable might have avoided the whole issue.

How expensive are decent surge protectors that include cable and phone? I'm trying to get them to invest in them, just as an extra bit of protection. Yes, they aren't going to protect you against full current flooding through a line, but I suspect full current would have fried more than just the ethernet cards. These might have made a big difference.

[JuntaJoe]

Noooooooo!

Surge protectors are false comfort for sensitive electronics like pc's!

Look into UPS's and have the cable go into them first before splitting off to tv's and router.

The only place I would use a surge protector would be on a tv in another room. Then finding one with cable connectors would be good.

But in the pc room, what messes with a pc may not mess with the tv. You need more sensitive and specialized contol boards to combat these surges than the simple slow blow breaker on the surge protector.

Besides, a UPS has it's own insurance with little or zero deductible unlike your homeowner's policy. With homeowners you pay a deductible and risk upping your rate.


Really, think about doing this. You personally rely on computer more than the average person. You also have more and better equipment. Spending $90 to $200 on a quality UPS system makes sense. Heck, my power can go out while printing a large document and it will crank out a bunch of pages and still give me time to neatly shut everything down. In sleep mode, when you leave, it will keep it going for an hour or more. And if the battery does run down finally, it will orderly shut your entire pc system down in time. That kind of software even comes with the cheap $50 models that give you 5 minutes of battery time.

Why am I, of all people teaching you guys this?

Batch, Skeeber, Brf......all of you know pc's better than me and are very attached to them. Would any of you wait the 3 weeks without a pc while it went to the shop like I did? Nosireeee! You guys have backups for your backups. If I didn't live on the coast and in a dirty power market, this all would be foriegn to me. You guys should be teaching me this stuff, not visa versa.


Last, you should call both the power and cable companies and say you are worried about lightning ruining your house electronics. Call the main repair offices and sit on hold one day. They will tell you about programs to inspect and rectify your more vulnerable areas. Sometimes they will be free or get you a rebate of sorts. Sometimes they cost, but are generally cheap. All will offer you self help guides too. Sometimes you are more vulnerable because your house system isn't grounded well. Lightning rods are pretty cheap too.

Btw, while I don't own an APC brand UPS, they offer a wealth of information on their site on this problem of lightning. Check it out.