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Can Lightning damage your PC?
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When you have thunder and strong lightning flashing in your city, if you have your PC on, can the lightning interfere and damage your PC, LCD or other tech in your room? Has it before? what are the Odds of Lightning damaging it?
Does Insurance cover Lighting damage to your technology?
Does Insurance cover Lighting damage to your technology?
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The answer is yes, it can damage your gear mainly (but not only) if it's a direct hit to the house. With nearby strikes you'll probably get away with it.
I always have got away with it... but I do unplug it all with an overhead thunderstorm (when it gets down to below 5s flash-sound delay).
Btw lucky74 can i risk damaging the cam with lightning?
It's worth a try. Give it a go and see what happens?
If it somehow routes through any pathway into your PC, it will kill it stone dead. The hard drive will probably melt and fuse with the rest of the metal.
But on the whole a PC will be a lot more protected than a TV is during a storm, as lightning is much more likely to hit an aerial or satellite dish, run down the cable and blow up your set.
I'd guess the first thing to bite the dust would be the motherboard. The CPU will also likely over surge with too much electricity, thus, causing it to burn out. The PSU will also likely totally burn out as well, what with it being the component that brings power to it. I also think you'd likely see quite a few sparks coming from within various sections of inside the tower.
(just added the extra info to show it's true and not just some urban myth )
Bummer
Altough I met her in Newcastle
Only if its due to a spike in the electric supply as opposed to how they usually happen which is via aerial/phone/cable
And what's more rotten is that our block doesn't have anything in the form of a lightning rod. :sleep:
A few years ago, a bolt of lightning struck a kid's 'climber' in a play area a little over 20 yards from my house, and a little less than 20 yards from a friend's house.
The surge down his phone-line killed his modem, and fried the USB module on his motherboard - He also lost a monitor, scanner, and DVD player which were all plugged in on the side of his house nearest the strike.
Another neighbour also lost a couple of electrical items due to the same lightning strike.
The surge tripped out our mains electricity, but luckily nothing was damaged.
Not from a direct strike going into your PC, no. But it might help if a slightly more distant strike had an effect on adjacent electrical cables, which could trip over to your PC.
But given the strength of lightning, compared to the normal electricity supply, the likelihood is that it will cause massive damage through surge, if not directly.
Says a lot about me. Back in 2005, a storm caused a power surge with frazzled my power pack and my mother board. £80 it cost to repair it.
I was advised to get a surge protector. 3 quid.
My mates computer died like that. I always use a circuit breaker on my plugs and since hers went kaput if there is a storm I unplugged mine LOL. Hers was melted.:D
Unpugging all appliances and removing aerial/dish/cable sockets, is always the best form of protection from lightning.
Cable obviously isn't as vulnerable, but there are instances of it being affected by lightning. You'd have to be very unlucky though.