Lightning Killed my NIC and USB Ports!

[homerdog]

It all came through my UPS. I had the USB connector connected to the UPS and the lightnin came in through that to get all my USB2.0 ports and my NIC. I had a spare NIC (10/100 only ) but now I'm short 4 USB ports.

Moral of the story is I'd have been fine if I hadn't had my UPS connected via USB.

 

[Infinisearch]

Sorry to hear that. What UPS do you have?

 

[Blazkowicz]

Reminds me of a 486SX where I somehow fried mutiple random hardware on the motherboard, yet nothing really important was fried in the end. It was a well osbolete hand me down / salvaged small PC and sat in a corner of a room, to play networked Doom 2 wads and do other silly things. Had this been in 1993 losing the floppy controller would have NOT gone well.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

It all came through my UPS. I had the USB connector connected to the UPS and the lightnin came in through that to get all my USB2.0 ports and my NIC. I had a spare NIC (10/100 only ) but now I'm short 4 USB ports.

Moral of the story is I'd have been fine if I hadn't had my UPS connected via USB.

What? You had your UPS connected to your PC via USB and the USB port wasn't protected? This concerns me because my UPS is connected to my NAS via USB.

Out of curiosity, why did you have your PC connected to your UPS via USB? For the same reason as my NAS? You need your PC to be constantly up?

 

[homerdog]

What? You had your UPS connected to your PC via USB and the USB port wasn't protected? This concerns me because my UPS is connected to my NAS via USB.

Out of curiosity, why did you have your PC connected to your UPS via USB? For the same reason as my NAS? You need your PC to be constantly up?

Yes, lightning came in through the USB connector on the UPS, fried all but 2 of my USB ports (all the USB2.0 ports and 2 of the 3.0 ones) and my NIC. This concerns me as well as I suspect APC isn't protecting that USB port. It did not come in through the power connector or my whole PC would be fried I guess. My PC needs to always be on cause it monitors stuff for work and my mains power sucks hard.

Now Windows thinks I need to activate again cause of the lightning strike. Never seen that before.

 

[homerdog]

Sorry to hear that. What UPS do you have?

An old APC 550. Old as hell but oddly it still works even after the strike lol.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

So the lightening struck somewhere, traveled through your wiring and into the APC, through the USB cable to your computer and fried your USB ports and your NIC?

Is your NIC run through the APC 550 as well? How do you know that wasn't the path it took?

It just seems odd that the USB wouldn't be surge protected, when the 550 includes such protection on the network jacks. It seems to me that every single "output" on the 550 is surge protected.

 

[homerdog]

So the lightening struck somewhere, traveled through your wiring and into the APC, through the USB cable to your computer and fried your USB ports and your NIC?

Is your NIC run through the APC 550 as well? How do you know that wasn't the path it took?

It just seems odd that the USB wouldn't be surge protected, when the 550 includes such protection on the network jacks. It seems to me that every single "output" on the 550 is surge protected.

Everything else on the network side was fine except the port my PC was connected to on the switch (which was fried) so I think it came through my PC from the UPS and into the switch.

 

[orangpelupa]

Now Windows thinks I need to activate again cause of the lightning strike. Never seen that before.

Spoiler

MS: This Is Najiid, how can i help you?
Homerdog: My computer was struck by lightning and now Windows asking me to activate
MS: Sir, Windows license is tied to the motherboard. You need a new license after you replace your motherboard
Homerdog: But i did not replace anything, my computer still turns on just fine

......

MS: This is Achmed, how can I help you?

 

[homerdog]

It activated after I called them and entered nine billion digits into the 6 character fields labeled A through like F. Jesus what a pain in the ass that was.

 

[orangpelupa]

It activated after I called them and entered nine billion digits into the 6 character fields labeled A through like F. Jesus what a pain in the ass that was.

you should be grateful tho.

in my case, the ridiculously long digits stuff still failed to activate, then routed to live agent in Indonesia that basically says "no". Then i contacted MS live chat, got somebody not from india, then still got "no".

then got someone from India that finally said "yes" after he asked me to upload the motherboard receipt.

 

[Blazkowicz]

An old APC 550. Old as hell but oddly it still works even after the strike lol.

I wonder if this is like motorbike helmets and needs be changed. Or if you need not mess with it.

 

[homerdog]

you should be grateful tho.

in my case, the ridiculously long digits stuff still failed to activate, then routed to live agent in Indonesia that basically says "no". Then i contacted MS live chat, got somebody not from india, then still got "no".

then got someone from India that finally said "yes" after he asked me to upload the motherboard receipt.

Wow that's ridiculous.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Wow that's ridiculous.

It's orangpelupa we're talking about, what did you expect?

The phone reactivation thing always worked fine for me on Win XP and Win 7. No clue if it's going to work on Windows 10, guess I'll see about that sometime next year when/if I buy a new pc.

 

[homerdog]

So my mobo did bite it and the only spare I had my CPU cooler won't fit on it cause stuff is in the way. So I have to use a woefully inadequate Intel stock cooler from an old LGA775 machine which means my CPU runs at ~2000MHz (i7-3770K)

So far I can't tell much difference TBH. Except it's loud as an Xbox 360