Lightning just killed my internet

feav66

feav66

feav66

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Joined
19 Aug 2006
Posts
33
Hi

I was fast asleep only to be woken by the loudest clap of thunder I have ever heard, seroulsy thought it was a gas explosion or bomb. Anyway, ever since my computer is telling me that there is no network cable connected.

I have connnected my laptop via cable and wifi and it works fine (ntl braodband). So I am thinking the lightning strike has damaged the motherboard's network card.

Is there anything that I can try to get this fixed or will I need to install a pci network card, or worst case will I have to replace the mother board.
 
Sounds nasty.

Have you tried another cable?

If you look under device manager should show your onboard network in there, does it still show?

If not then it's prob blown, be glad it aint taken anything else with it, you can get a PCI lan card for less then a fiver these days.
 
you may want to look into a surge adapter that has a protection port for satalite and have your cable wire run into the adapter and then into the cable modem.
i had a similar experence a few years back where i lost the full pc to a surge through the modem. PC was fully switched off and unpluged at the time.
i now have my adsl going through a surge adapter first before going into the router.
if all you have lost is the LAN from the mobo then you have had a lucky escape.
i would try the suggestion of a pci card
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-024-DL&groupid=46&catid=1002&subcat=
Not that expensive
 
Everthing is shown as working fine in device manager and the cable works with my laptop. I think I will have to get myself a pci card and see what happens.
Like you say I should be counting my self lucky, those surge protectors are worth there weight in gold, it's a shame they don't do one for the broadband line.
 
feav66 said:
Everthing is shown as working fine in device manager and the cable works with my laptop. I think I will have to get myself a pci card and see what happens.
Like you say I should be counting my self lucky, those surge protectors are worth there weight in gold, it's a shame they don't do one for the broadband line.
Click to expand...

They do, I got a Belkin one, it has every thing on it, LAN, Phone, everything, cost me about £30 though, but worth it if anything goes wrong.
 
Might be a power cut in the region of your exchange? Happened to me the other day, no internet after a power cut down the road. Just a thought. Or damage to the exchange itself?
 
jonas123 said:
Might be a power cut in the region of your exchange? Happened to me the other day, no internet after a power cut down the road. Just a thought. Or damage to the exchange itself?
Click to expand...

It still works with his laptop though
 
feav66 said:
Hi

I was fast asleep only to be woken by the loudest clap of thunder I have ever heard, seroulsy thought it was a gas explosion or bomb. Anyway, ever since my computer is telling me that there is no network cable connected.

I have connnected my laptop via cable and wifi and it works fine (ntl braodband). So I am thinking the lightning strike has damaged the motherboard's network card.

Is there anything that I can try to get this fixed or will I need to install a pci network card, or worst case will I have to replace the mother board.
Click to expand...

Exactly the same happened to me about a year back.

Lightning caused our power to go out for a few seconds, when it came back on there was 'no network cable attached' - I double checked the drivers and the device manager and the on-board network 'card' was being detected fine. :(

Had to get a separate network card to put in a PCI slot to get back on the network
 
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This is the main reason I have my network seperated via wifi from my computers (all on gig network). As my pc's are all on ups power protectors if the router goes due to lightning etc my systems are still ok :)
 
I have just had the same problem.

Its taken out my wireless router in the house and the onboard nic in my office PC which was on a wired connection via ethernet. Lucky really as I have just built a new rig and it was not surge protected at all:eek:

Can anyone suggest a good wireless router to replace the BT Voyager I was using. It needs a good range as I would like to put my garden office PC on wireless as well, to prevent any future issues with surges etc. The PC is about 30m down the garden BTW.
 
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