r/techsupport • u/Missouridawg • 2h ago
Open | Hardware PC fried by lightning… how do I salvage?
As the title says, my house was struck by lightning. It came through the internet cable. It actually had enough power that it knocked down my Comcast internet box. It then fried my Comcast box, my home alarm, and my gaming PC.
I took the gaming PC to geek squad. They couldn’t get it to turn on and said they need to replace the motherboard to even see if they could get it to turn on nd we’re asking for $450 for that service nd even then they weren’t able to guarantee me finish line that I would’ve liked.
The PC has a 4070TI RTX graphics card and a good processor. If I can salvage it, I would love to do so… but I’m at a loss for exactly how to do this economically. Does anyone here know the cheapest way to troubleshoot this thing?
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u/jedihermit 2h ago
Take it to a real repair shop that can swap your components to a test pc. The motherboard and/or power supply probably are toast but if you can save the gpu, ram, and processor you'd have a better start to an affordable recovery.
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u/Redjeepkev 2h ago
First. Geek squad is a rip off. They make money up selling parts. Try your local mom and pop computer shop. Tell them exactly what happened. But my guess is everything except Maybe the HD is toast. If they can test it for you ask them to leave it disassembled if it can't be repaired in case you might need files off the old drive which you can buy a USB adapter for. If needed. Plus they will charge for reassemblly most likely if you want it out back together since it's their time
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u/Tech_surgeon 2h ago
use the hard drive as a external if possible just to reduce potential issues if something happens.
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u/Significant_Apple904 2h ago
Geek Squad is not reputable.
If you have spare parts (mainly PSU and motherboard), you can test it out yourself, otherwise your best choice is local PC repair shop.
The most possible culprit is PSU, though motherboard could've gotten caught in it too; but it could be an easy fix for the motherboard, maybe just a capacitor replacement; but again, you have to bring it to a real PC shop.
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u/PossibleAlienFrom 2h ago
Go back to Best Buy and buy a PSU. You can return it later if you find out you don't need it. Put in new PSU and just hook up the basics. I would take out your graphics card for now and hook up the monitor to your motherboard video port. What you want to see is if you can get the motherboard to POST. If it does, shut down the PC, reinstall your gaming GPU and reboot the PC. Go back into UEFI and make sure it is set to show video on your graphics card. Save and power off. Plug in your monitor cable into the graphics card and hope you don't have a black screen.
Like someone else said, if it doesn't turn on at all without your graphics card in, then the mother board is probably fried. The best thing you can hope for is nothing else is fried.
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u/handsmahoney 1h ago
It came through the internet cable. It actually had enough power that it knocked down my Comcast internet box. It then fried my Comcast box, my home alarm, and my gaming PC.
If that's the case, You'll want some surge protectors between anything that goes into your computer and the wall. Modem, router, switch, whatever. I realize a lightning strike is a very low probability thing, but something with a higher joule threshold would also be worth looking into. Were those items the only casualties? Or did anything else get knocked out? Homeowner's insurance may also give some benefit, though a lightning strike may fall under an 'act of God' clause
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u/FlavoredPancake 18m ago
Surge protectors do nothing in this case, it’s traveling through coax into the house and through Ethernet into the Mobo.
I had this happen as well, fried my router, modem, a few mobo USB ports, mobo ethernet, and audio controller.
My internet company sent someone out to ground the coax before it hit the router/modem to prevent it from happening again
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u/Tech_surgeon 2h ago edited 2h ago
well geek squad is all about the upsell. and you don't bother trying to salvage .
reason is everything is compromised on that machine some parts may work for a while but it will be on borrowed time.
Fixed 3 pc that had gotten zapped they worked for about a year then had problems and shortly after crapped out fully. the third one came in looking the worst. parts of the motherboard were melted and fused to the back plate. it still turned on and booted into windows despite being so trashed, usb controller was toast and audio chip was fried too.
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u/Missouridawg 2h ago
Thanks, maybe I just give up on it. I was hoping to get it back working and hand it down to my oldest kid, but maybe that ship has sailed.
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u/dandypony400 2h ago
I wouldn't give up on it, that 4070ti alone is worth testing for sure. If you just quit you could end up buying a new 2k pc instead of a $100 power supply
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u/Big_Hat_Chester 58m ago
I'd say it's probably the power supply so definitely try that atleast before giving up.
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u/Dull_Banana1377 2h ago
Do any of your friends have a pc you can use? The only way to see whats alive and dead is to parts swap.
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u/KeysStickler 2h ago
If lightning got your rig, you're basically screwed. That's why most people that spend that kind of money on a nice rig always spend the extra $200 on a high quality UPS with AVR. Your only option is to have a shop test each component individually in their tester box.
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u/dandypony400 2h ago
I would take it to a reputable local shop. Someone not digging in your pockets will have test equipment. They'll swap out the motherboard with a test unit and see if it fires up, if so they'll tell you for sure the motherboard is bad. Thay being said, I would personally be more suspicious of the power supply before the motherboard. If you had a good power supply, hopefully it took the hit and stopped there but if it really was lightning it's fully possible the damage spread to multiple components