A friend of mine lost his newly built gaming rig due to power outage, pretty nasty stuff. Now he uses UPS devices
Did he just lose the power supply? Motherboard?
Saying "lost a gaming rig" sounds way worse - like the whole thing was a total loss - which is not going to happen.
I won't say about his rig, but when I left mine plugged during a thunderstorm it booted up at first. What I noticed was complete freezing with a hissing noise every couple minutes which had to be hard rebooted. Took it to the store and he took pity of me (act of god is not covered in warranties afaik) and switched my psu, motherboard and cpu for free and sent the ram overseas for replacement (Took a month to receive back...). When I got the ram back, same thing was happening and they told me the ram they send me was faulty and had to resend it overseas (another month "yay"...).
After that, the rig would run normally but once every blue moon it would freeze yet again. So, I tried switching the GPU (it was either that or the harddrive) and it worked. I'm not sure which component was at fault but an almost complete replacement was necessary for mine to work again. I even switched my keyboard and mouse for an upgrade as an excuse on the whole situation :P
Thunderstorms can do that because there's a huge electric spike. The energy from lightning always goes somewhere, and if it goes inside your computer it'll break everything in its path.
A power outage is much less destructive because normally there's only a sudden power loss, and the device only has to be build so that it never breaks itself even if it suddenly loses all power.
Oh yea, I don't wish it on anyone the pain I had to endure until I had a working rig again.
I just mentioned it just in case his friend has mistaken the power outage with what happened to me.
The guy fixing your computer was probably an inadequate fuck that hates his 10 hour gig for minimal wage.
In 21st century a lightning cannot get inside your computer PERIOD. (Unless it goes through the LAN cable if you are stupid enough not to put a router or a switch before your PC, but fiber optics is a commodity these days)
You have power company fuses that also track your power usage. You have household fuses that would fry long before the lightning reaches your computer, and even if it somehow arcs over the air and moves on through the fuses (that's borderline impossible), regular and cheap power outlets have built-in fuses in case overvoltage happens.
If that's not enough then your power supply will be toast, but it's borderline impossible for the supply to release that voltage into the system, granted it's of a higher quality. Certified PSU's have tons of protections.
Back when we didn't have fiber optics I got used to buying a new router every summer because every once in awhile a lighting would hit the street pole and the electricity would flow from the pole to the router and it will be toast. No damage to the computer whatsoever.
But lightning traveling through the power grid? Give me a break.
To keep it short, he replaced what he could, I highly doubt you needed RAM change AT ALL. Faulty ram is hard to catch, it leads to blue screens, not freezes. You have to run Memtest86+ on it to scan every single memory bit for reading and writing. I've had faulty memory sticks it takes hours on some to even detect it.
Probably you were unlucky and you had a defective GPU. Either that or your GPU needed some BIOS reflashing (I've heard that this helps). Either way it was RMA from the start.
Sadly, back then (This incident is over 8 years old) and still NOW we don't have fibre optic here.
As for being inadequate, I got free upgrades for the majority of the rig. Can't really complain. Hurray for warranties haha.
A friend of mine lost his newly built gaming rig due to power outage, pretty nasty stuff. Now he uses UPS devices
Did he just lose the power supply? Motherboard?
Saying "lost a gaming rig" sounds way worse - like the whole thing was a total loss - which is not going to happen.
I won't say about his rig, but when I left mine plugged during a thunderstorm it booted up at first. What I noticed was complete freezing with a hissing noise every couple minutes which had to be hard rebooted. Took it to the store and he took pity of me (act of god is not covered in warranties afaik) and switched my psu, motherboard and cpu for free and sent the ram overseas for replacement (Took a month to receive back...). When I got the ram back, same thing was happening and they told me the ram they send me was faulty and had to resend it overseas (another month "yay"...).
After that, the rig would run normally but once every blue moon it would freeze yet again. So, I tried switching the GPU (it was either that or the harddrive) and it worked. I'm not sure which component was at fault but an almost complete replacement was necessary for mine to work again. I even switched my keyboard and mouse for an upgrade as an excuse on the whole situation :P
Thunderstorms can do that because there's a huge electric spike. The energy from lightning always goes somewhere, and if it goes inside your computer it'll break everything in its path.
A power outage is much less destructive because normally there's only a sudden power loss, and the device only has to be build so that it never breaks itself even if it suddenly loses all power.
Oh yea, I don't wish it on anyone the pain I had to endure until I had a working rig again.
I just mentioned it just in case his friend has mistaken the power outage with what happened to me.
The guy fixing your computer was probably an inadequate fuck that hates his 10 hour gig for minimal wage.
In 21st century a lightning cannot get inside your computer PERIOD. (Unless it goes through the LAN cable if you are stupid enough not to put a router or a switch before your PC, but fiber optics is a commodity these days)
You have power company fuses that also track your power usage. You have household fuses that would fry long before the lightning reaches your computer, and even if it somehow arcs over the air and moves on through the fuses (that's borderline impossible), regular and cheap power outlets have built-in fuses in case overvoltage happens.
If that's not enough then your power supply will be toast, but it's borderline impossible for the supply to release that voltage into the system, granted it's of a higher quality. Certified PSU's have tons of protections.
Back when we didn't have fiber optics I got used to buying a new router every summer because every once in awhile a lighting would hit the street pole and the electricity would flow from the pole to the router and it will be toast. No damage to the computer whatsoever.
But lightning traveling through the power grid? Give me a break.
To keep it short, he replaced what he could, I highly doubt you needed RAM change AT ALL. Faulty ram is hard to catch, it leads to blue screens, not freezes. You have to run Memtest86+ on it to scan every single memory bit for reading and writing. I've had faulty memory sticks it takes hours on some to even detect it.
Probably you were unlucky and you had a defective GPU. Either that or your GPU needed some BIOS reflashing (I've heard that this helps). Either way it was RMA from the start.
False.
First, all fuses have activation time (or in modern houses MCBs have activation time), so that a lightning strike can do a lot of damage before the fuse even activates.
Second, lightning travels several kilometers through air always when it hits the ground. It's not only possible but also likely that it will arc over the minuscule distance of air that you have in your fuse.
Lightning traveling through phone lines is more likely to damage electrical equipment than lightning traveling through electric lines, but both can happen.
Also lightning can travel through router and damage the computer (if you're using wired connection). I had one computer that was totally blasted that way. If you've had multiple times with only router being damaged then you're lucky and didn't get any hit that would be powerful enough and near enough.
I have those power surge protectors and am gleefully relying on them and am probably foolishly trusting them to protect my computers from an electrical surge during a thunderstorm.
I have those power surge protectors and am gleefully relying on them and am probably foolishly trusting them to protect my computers from an electrical surge during a thunderstorm.
A surge protector can protect up to certain limit. If the lightning strike is further away it's often enough. If the lightning strikes an air cable right next to your house it's often not enough.
It should be seen as a good way to reduce the risk, but it won't eliminate the risk completely.
My personal opinion is that not all risks need to be eliminated completely.
The guy fixing your computer was probably an inadequate fuck that hates his 10 hour gig for minimal wage.
In 21st century a lightning cannot get inside your computer PERIOD. (Unless it goes through the LAN cable if you are stupid enough not to put a router or a switch before your PC, but fiber optics is a commodity these days)
You have power company fuses that also track your power usage. You have household fuses that would fry long before the lightning reaches your computer, and even if it somehow arcs over the air and moves on through the fuses (that's borderline impossible), regular and cheap power outlets have built-in fuses in case overvoltage happens.
If that's not enough then your power supply will be toast, but it's borderline impossible for the supply to release that voltage into the system, granted it's of a higher quality. Certified PSU's have tons of protections.
Back when we didn't have fiber optics I got used to buying a new router every summer because every once in awhile a lighting would hit the street pole and the electricity would flow from the pole to the router and it will be toast. No damage to the computer whatsoever.
But lightning traveling through the power grid? Give me a break.
To keep it short, he replaced what he could, I highly doubt you needed RAM change AT ALL. Faulty ram is hard to catch, it leads to blue screens, not freezes. You have to run Memtest86+ on it to scan every single memory bit for reading and writing. I've had faulty memory sticks it takes hours on some to even detect it.
Probably you were unlucky and you had a defective GPU. Either that or your GPU needed some BIOS reflashing (I've heard that this helps). Either way it was RMA from the start.
You severely underestimate just how powerful lightning is. Something powerful enough to jump a mile through the air to reach your house in the first place is going to laugh at a fraction of an inch for a fuse. Fuses and circuit breakers are there to handle much smaller things than a direct lightning strike, such as plugging in too many things to the same circuit or a much more distant lightning strike that isn't all that powerful by the time it gets to you.
Surge protectors don't try to block lightning, as that's a fool's errand. They try to reroute a surge. The idea is that you have a MOV (metal-oxide varistor) that is normally very high resistance, so it gets basically ignored in normal operation. When there is a huge voltage spike, the MOV becomes very low resistance, so nearly all of the energy that comes in the cable goes across the MOV and to the output and gets sent right back to the wall without ever reaching your hardware. A sufficiently direct lightning strike will plow right through a lot of defenses, but the MOVs in a good surge protector can protect against much larger spikes than a simple fuse.
Back when we didn't have fiber optics I got used to buying a new router every summer because every once in awhile a lighting would hit the street pole and the electricity would flow from the pole to the router and it will be toast. No damage to the computer whatsoever.
But lightning traveling through the power grid? Give me a break.
How did the electricity generated from the lightning strike get from the street pole to your router? Was it not through the power grid your house is connected to so that you have access to electrical power to begin with.
I've recently lost a TV , Modem and external HDD power enclosure all while using a surge protector. Keep your receipts for your items and definitely the surge protector receipt as they all will jump through every single hoop to avoid honoring the warranty they have...
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As for being inadequate, I got free upgrades for the majority of the rig. Can't really complain. Hurray for warranties haha.
First, all fuses have activation time (or in modern houses MCBs have activation time), so that a lightning strike can do a lot of damage before the fuse even activates.
Second, lightning travels several kilometers through air always when it hits the ground. It's not only possible but also likely that it will arc over the minuscule distance of air that you have in your fuse.
Lightning traveling through phone lines is more likely to damage electrical equipment than lightning traveling through electric lines, but both can happen.
Also lightning can travel through router and damage the computer (if you're using wired connection). I had one computer that was totally blasted that way. If you've had multiple times with only router being damaged then you're lucky and didn't get any hit that would be powerful enough and near enough.
It should be seen as a good way to reduce the risk, but it won't eliminate the risk completely.
My personal opinion is that not all risks need to be eliminated completely.
Surge protectors don't try to block lightning, as that's a fool's errand. They try to reroute a surge. The idea is that you have a MOV (metal-oxide varistor) that is normally very high resistance, so it gets basically ignored in normal operation. When there is a huge voltage spike, the MOV becomes very low resistance, so nearly all of the energy that comes in the cable goes across the MOV and to the output and gets sent right back to the wall without ever reaching your hardware. A sufficiently direct lightning strike will plow right through a lot of defenses, but the MOVs in a good surge protector can protect against much larger spikes than a simple fuse.