Lightening Took Her PC

[Feralpeg]

We had an intense thunderstorm tonight. At one point, they said there were between 25 and 30 cloud to ground lightening strikes per minute. We lost power several times. Unfortunately, one of those strikes took out my sister's PC. It is dead. No power, except for a little green light blinking on the back.

I tried unplugging it and plugging it directly into the wall socket instead of the surge protector, but no difference. I can't figure out what the little green light is for. I looked it over to see if there was some type of reset, but couldn't find anything. Any ideas?

Sadly, she has a surge protector installed on her house from the power company in addition to the little one she had the PC plugged into. The power company only covers things with a motor such as a refrigerator, washer, dryer, etc.

Bad storm!

 

[P.I. Squirrel]

Sounds like a bad power supply on the computer. 75% of the time, a new power supply will fix it. The other 25% is the motherboard, since it sends the signal to the power supply to apply power. It's easy to replace, even for beginners, just four screws and disconnecting/connecting cables. Tag or take a pic of the cables before you disconnect them, so you'll know where they go. Power supplies run 30 to 50 bucks. When selecting one, be sure it's wattage rating is at or greater than the one you are replacing, 400 to 500 watts is common.

I lost 2 computers to lightning when I lived in Florida. Because of their age, it wasn't worth the spare parts. I bought a new computer, removed the hard drives from the old ones, and installed them as slave drives in the new computer. This was five years ago, and they are still working fine today. No data lost.

 

[froggygrrrl]

A similar event happened to my sister about a month ago. Her computer and air conditioner were totally fried during a lightning storm. I believe her insurance covered the computer, but I'm not positive. From what I hear, it still hasn't been replaced.

 

[FSUDisneyGirl]

That's happened to me twice...ugh! I feel for her!

Tell her to check and see if her surge protector has a warranty. Mine did, and I got like $400 from them ..not CLOSE to covering the cost of a new laptop, but better than nothing!!!

 

[Feralpeg]

Thanks, everyone! I'll pass this information along to my sister.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Sometimes the blinking light will be blinking in a sequence that helps diagnose the problem. She should consult her user's manual to see if that's what's going on--if she doesn't have the manual anymore, she can go to the manufacturer's website and probably find an online version there.

 

[phoenx79]

If your sister still can't get her computer to start up, try this, might work:

Unplug computer if there is no actual power switch.
Press power button for 5-10 seconds.
Plug computer back into power and try starting it up.

We have crappy Dell computers at work and we lose power often, this is the only way we can get them to restart sometimes.

 

[Free4Life11]

Yikes! Homeowners insurance should cover the computer. I believe lightning is a covered loss.