# BZZzzAPP!!



## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Passing storms and I knew the sound when I heard it. One of those sounds that you just know ain't good and if you get out of it unscathed, it's a marvel.

Looked around and everything seemed normal. Laptop still running, etc.

First thing I noticed was the web was down. Modem answered up, but not outside connection.

Started digging. And sniffing. No dial tone on the phone. Checking segment by segment. Found the line fuse laying across the room from the 66 block it used to be plugged into. Tested the outside line from there and it was good. Swapped the line fuse and got a temporary line to the modem which luckily got me back on the web.

But that ain't all.

Sniff test detected the telltale odor near one of the UPSs which was also making weak but odd noises. Scratch one.

One, possibly two other UPSs appear out.

Two EHDs spin up, but so far don't connect where they can be read. Could be a hub. Not sure yet.

TV and HT/DVD player seem OK so far.

Upstairs PC seems OK insofar as it boots to the desktop.

Bedroom PC, no such luck. Powered up to the OEM screen, then stayed there. Powered it off, but it won't even try to come back on so far. Will dig more into that later. Maybe just a PSU hopefully.

Two 5 port GigaBit Switches are unresponsive. That takes the wired LAN down and I can only use wireless. Something made me unplug the LAN cable and go wireless on this notebook just before the storm moved in or I may have lost this too.

Garage door opener is acting funky as far as the lights, but operates the door fine from the wall button. Haven't tried the remotes yet.

AC, Fridge, deep freeze all seem good so far.

Who know what other little things I'll find over the next couple of days.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Got the two EHDs to answer up once I took the hub out, so it looks like one or two 10 ports hubs are bad.

Printer appears OK.

Couple of X10 modules are acting funny; not sure about them yet.

What's odd is that the two Belkin 800 UPS are in different parts of the house on different breakers. Not sure if they on the name AC leg or not. Neither was networked but one was connected to this laptop via USB hub - the same hub the EHDs were on. That UPS also had the EHD power warts and the printer.

Strike appears to have come in via phone line (blasted line fuse). Got to the two LAN switches sitting next to the modem, but didn't affect the modem (that I can tell so far). But I can't figure the two UPSs out of about 6 in here.

Note: all of the LED light fixtures are still working in all rooms.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Good and not so good


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Desktop is a Gateway DX4300. I can only get it to the OEM splash screen, but no further, not even into SetUp or the boot menu (F12). Opened it up and connected the PSU to a tester. Lights and numbers appear OK, so I'm guessing it's not that. LAN port is on the MoBo and considering the switches smoked, well ... connect the dots.

I see a few sellers offering used/removed/reclaimed MoBos for $100 or so, but no indication of a new, direct replacement. They don't appear to include CPUs either. Crap shoot there as to what might be involved in getting it to boot with my HDs and CPU, etc., even with the system restore discs. HDs spin up when the PSU tester is used, so they may be OK.

-----

Two outside LEDs are dead. Phillips .3W nightlight type bulbs in landscape weather proof fixtures. They were on at the time. None of the Cree fixtures inside the house were, so that might have made a difference.

--------------

Garage door opener works with remotes; fully opens and closes. Lights come on and off out of sequence though and don't react to the wall switch button.

...


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## RBA (Apr 14, 2013)

Have faith more components will fail over the next month.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Geeze, that's what happens to a house loaded with technological wonders? I can remember back in the '50s, I was awakened by what sounded like a bullwhip snapping really loudly. Went downstairs and saw my father and mother looking at a totally destroyed TV. Puddles of metal parts and the cabinet was in pieces. But that was the only thing destroyed. Well, the TV and antenna. The antenna was gone, found parts of it all over the yard. Not grounded.

Rich


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

RBA said:


> Have faith more components will fail over the next month.


Lots of things I'll have to be watching extra careful for a while.

One of the UPSs that was unresponsive this morning has decided on a self-ressurection, but I'm not expecting it to last.

Found one or two more things also, like the POE injector for an outdoor IP camera. Camera was unplugged, so it should be OK.


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## armophob (Nov 13, 2006)

You are living one of my biggest fears.
All the electronics are on UPS's.
Got surge protectors on garage stuff including the garage door opener.
But it is the appliances, ceiling fans, water heater, and especially the house A/C units that I worry about.

How high is your deductible?


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

armophob said:


> How high is your deductible?


Zero. Ain't got no insurance. They don't like to write it on old farm houses out in the country with volunteer fire departments for people in my economic situation.

Probably need to cycle the furnace despite the weather. Digital thermostat displays the time and temp correctly, but that doesn't tell me anything about the blower and ignition circuits.

Ceiling fans all still work despite having electronic wall switches or remote controls.


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## armophob (Nov 13, 2006)

SayWhat? said:


> Zero. Ain't got no insurance. They don't like to write it on old farm houses out in the country with volunteer fire departments for people in my economic situation.
> 
> Probably need to cycle the furnace despite the weather. Digital thermostat displays the time and temp correctly, but that doesn't tell me anything about the blower and ignition circuits.
> 
> Ceiling fans all still work despite having electronic wall switches or remote controls.


Then don't go crazy on network repairs until you get the full picture.
Give your place time to come down from the shock.
And bury a few bucks each week to cover one or the other.
The small repairs, or the one big one.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Furnace works ... I think.

First couple of times I cycled the T-Stat button for manual blower, I could hear the relays click, but that's all. Flipped it over to Cool (even though I don't have central AC, the T-Stat and furnace controls will do both) and tried again, it came on. Went back to heat and it worked; set the temp higher than ambient and it cycled normally through the process of pre-blower, ignition and main blower. So, I guess we'll see come Fall.

Priorities of the bigger ticket items so far are the two UPSs so I'll have some level of protection for the next storm.

LAN stuff is cheap, probably $50 or so and already ordered.

Cell phone repeater is out. That may have to be replaced sooner than later since I barely get 1-2 bars inside the house and don't use the landline for outbound calls due to the rate structure.

Not sure what to do about the garage door opener since the only thing affected seems to be the light cycles. I can just unplug those for now if necessary. As long as the door works, I can deal with that later. Possibly future delayed reaction failure looming though.

PC is another one to think about. I had turned it off and switched to the laptop when I was trying to reduce power consumption, so it was basically a standby machine. Given the likelihood that the motherboard is shot, it probably isn't worth fixing since I can get a refurb/off-lease unit for $200 or less with Win7 Pro. No way to know right now about the HDs or memory modules.


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

I've posted this on the board here before but it's been 4 or 5 years since it happened. . . lightning hit a tree by our utility room off the kitchen one Sunday afternoon. I was sleeping in front of the TV about 30 feet away and came off the floor several feet. Thunder the same time as the strike! A branch of the tree looked like the exploded firecrackers you see in cartoons.

Long story short, I found computers, routers, switches, telephones, down to ports on switches and even Cat5 Connectors that had to be re-crimped to work (not new connector, just re-crimp) for the next six months.

Luckily, nothing else major other than a AVR that failed within a year.

I visited a friend's house years earlier that had been hit. . .you could see the burn on the gutter as it jumped from a tree. On the other end of the house (typical 3 BR ranch house) in the utility room, the beige wall transformer that Bell used to power the 'Princess' telephone lights was plugged in the outlet above the washer. It was embedded in the sheetrock on the opposite wall!.

For your computer, I'd recommend getting a docking station for the drives and try them on another computer - get the data and replace or junk the computer.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

SayWhat? said:


> One of the UPSs that was unresponsive this morning has decided on a self-ressurection, but I'm not expecting it to last.


Not unexpectedly, the second life was short-lived. Started beeping this morning as if the power was out. Checked the outlet, moved the cord to another outlet known good. Still beeping, acting as the AC failed. Maybe an internal fuse or some other component. It's about 10 years old, so probably not worth taking a risk on.

Narrowed the garage door opener issue down to the wall switch, I think. Once I disconnected it, the weird behavior stopped. Don't really know if the problem is in the switch or the circuit it connects to in the opener. Switch is really only two momentary button switches, two resistors and an LED; not a lot to go wrong.

What's bugging me is the possibility of some hidden failure in some item I haven't discovered yet. Not really wild about the thought of going to town and coming back a few hours later to find a pile of ashes.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Unfortunately, Uninterupptable Power Supplies don't always do a good job of surge protection. Best protection is a whole house surge protector at the main panel, backed up at your home theater system and computers with a top quality surge protector like Panamax. Not hat a UPS isn't an important part of the picture.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

OK, I have a problem and I don't know how big or small it is.

This notebook is a Gateway NV7912u running Win7 HP

Until recently on bootup, there was a 30 second delay at the Gateway screen with 'F2 for Setup' and 'F12 for boot menu'. I believe I set it that long for a reason.

That has gone away. There is now only about a 1-2 second pause, so if you're not ready, you miss the chance to make those selections. The F-12 option was also gone. I can't figure out why it changed, or how to change it back. I got into BIOS setup and there are no options there that I could find. Nor in the Boot Menu. I did find the option in BIOS setup to restore the F-12 option, but I have no idea why it changed and went away.

A web search for 'set POST screen delay' led me to a forum (http://superuser.com/questions/497107/how-to-change-the-default-delay-on-the-boot-menu-from-30-seconds-to-5-seconds-on) that discusses a setting in Control Panel - System - Advanced System Settings - Start up and Recovery - Time to display list of operating systems

When I went there, the 30 seconds was showing. I only have one OS installed however, so that may not even be the screen I'm looking for. That would also seem to be applicable once Windows starts and what I'm looking for should be before that.

So, where do I need to be looking and why did it change?


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

SayWhat? said:


> OK, I have a problem and I don't know how big or small it is.
> 
> This notebook is a Gateway NV7912u running Win7 HP
> 
> ...


This is just idle speculation, but is the Windows 10 update symbol showing?


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

phrelin said:


> This is just idle speculation, but is the Windows 10 update symbol showing?


Is there a connection?


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

Last week we suffered a power surge/outage caused by a severe thunder storm. All my Home Theater gear and computer gear were protected by high quality Power Conditioners/Surge Protectors. None of our major appliances were affected but our coffee pot was a casualty. The new one is connected to a surge protector.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

^^ One thing I've been seeing is that some of those devices are sacrificial either in full or incrementally. Now that they appear to have survived one hit, they may not survive the next, or the next.

Odd thing about all of them, cheap or expensive is that you never know if they did their job or if the surge just wasn't big enough to have caused damage even if they weren't there.

.


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

Most high quality Power Conditioners/Surge Protectors will disconnect your equipment if the magnitude of the surge is greater than the capacity of the surge protection components and will no longer work indicating repair or replacement is needed.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

SayWhat? said:


> Is there a connection?


As I said, it's idle speculation - my gut really - but the Windows 10 installation process does seem to mess with bios functions at the boot/restart level. When I almost bricked my Intel Computer Stick, at one point I seemingly lost control of those "F" key options until somehow I forced it to restore Win 8.1. And some goofy boot stuff happens sometimes on the dual boot Win 7/10 desktop I somehow easily created. For the first time I really feel I don't have control of the hardware or bios and my experience goes back to before Microsoft existed.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

The Icon is there, but only that. I haven't downloaded anything for 10 and don't plan to.

I guess I could try removing the WinUpdate file.


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