Thread: Struck by lightning!

Yeah I've seen alot of routers go bad from lighting, I know this guy who runs a pc shop and he has alot of them laying around which all have problems due to lighting. Some come on but don't work right. Lighting seems to like them, make sure your pc is grounded. If your electric company grounded your house then everything should be ok. Use three prong plugs and power surge protectors, I've went through many storms and never had problems this way. I even have a Yagi WIFI antenna which I used an old jumper cable for cars and clamped one end to the pole of the antenna and striped the other end, connected it to a metal stake and drove it into the ground so everything is grounded. Without that its just like a big lightning rode.
Grounds prevent lightning strikes by directing the hit away and into the ground, use these methods and you'll never have to worry unless its extremely bad weather, then its wise to just shut things off for awhile to be safe

I had this happen to me once. It wasn't even raining, just threatening to.. Suddenly I see a flash at the back of the pc resulting in my sound and modem getting knocked out. (this was still in the days of dial up modems) The sound I got working again but the modem was fried. I always made sure from then on to unplug from the wall during a storm.

Some power boxes (strips and UPS) come with connections for cable to give it surge protection. I have never run mine through one, so I do not know if the extra connection would hinder the connection speed.

Originally Posted by Saltgrass

Some power boxes (strips and UPS) come with connections for cable to give it surge protection. I have never run mine through one, so I do not know if the extra connection would hinder the connection speed.

I don't know, I never ran cable through one either. The biggest threat is with dial-up and phone line connections, don't know why but alot of people report lightning strikes when using them. I've been safe when I had cable though, never been hit once. If I had a Wifi router though, I would use a surge protector as a precaution. Most routers only come in two prong adapters so a surge bar I think would be best, that way when a power surge from lightning comes though, it will trip the bar and stop any damage to your electronics plugged into the bar. It usually is a most when running TV's, Computers, and anything else you want to protect.

Why was your router behind your monitor? I assume thats near the window?

I have all the cables that come from my computer connect to a surge protector so hopefully it should protect me from such events as these.