Upon returning home from our annual summer vacation I discovered we had a catastrophic lightning strike that essentially fried all of the electronics in our home. This included the LED/LCD televisions, the computers and associated electronics in our year old appliances and all of our computers connected to power (regardless of surge protection) or connected to our in wall data/video distribution system. Insurance covered the big stuff but left us with a huge deductible (the insurance company said there were two storms and since we couldn't prove that all of the electronics were toasted in one storm, they charged us two deductibles!)

 

The bright spot in our tale of woe was the purchase of extended warranties on my FSX rig. I've built my own computers since clones became available in the mid 80's. This allowed me to select the best components without relying on sole source options from the big three (IBM, Compaq and HP). When I started to overclock I became concerned with life cycle considerations due to excessive heat, junction voltages and power comsumption. About this time online and retail shops such as Microcenter (my favorite), NewEgg and CompUSA started to make extended warranties available for a very modest fee.

 

As most of you who pushed the OC envelope will attest, early OCing had its share of risk, particularly motherboards, memory and CPUs. I can't tell you how many of these components died an awful death at the hands of this mad scientist but if fact be known, I'm a serial destroyer of electronics. To the story at point -

 

My FSX rig was only six months old. It consisted of a Corsair Carbide 500R case, an i7-2600K chip protected by a Corsair H100 cooler, an ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 MB, 8Gb of Corsair DDR3 1600 memory, an EVGA GTX 560ti video card and a good suite of hard drives. Of these, the case, cooler, the drives and the video card survived the lightning strike. I bought extended warranties on all of the parts including: Intel's OC protection for the processor at $25US, Microcenter's extended warranty on the motherboard and RAM at $22US. You may not know it but manufacturers nor retailers don't cover overvoltage damage under their regular warranty. I wish I had taken pictures but there was NO WAY I could hide the cause of the component failure (the memory was welded to the motherboard)! I have no idea why the 560ti survived.

 

Replacement of the damaged components was simple. A single call to Intel followed by a short email with the return processor's tracking number took less than 1/2 hour to do. The motherboard was replaced with a new one at the local Microcenter retail store, another hour. The memory took the longest, I had to wait overnight (on a Sunday) for the RMA to be issued before I could send the damaged sticks back to Corsair. With an additional postage cost of $12US and another 1/2 hour of time, the new parts were ordered. For a grand total of $59US and about two hours of time I had replaced the damaged components with new (not refurbished) parts. By the way, the motherboard was on sale with a $30US rebate which Microcenter graciously completed the paper work on. Total cost: $29US! All of the parts were delivered within five to seven days and I was up and running in a little over a week. I stress tested the H100 and the GTX560ti and they work just great so I won't be replacing them.

 

Hope this cautionary tale gives you some pause the next time you're asked if you want the extended warranty.

 

Regards,

 

Rick Bertz

Wow!!! TWO Lightning strikes!

 

Makes you wonder if Zeus is an AMD fanb0i? :lol:

 

 

Anyways, glad to see that you got everything back up and running. I also use Microcenter and they have fantastic return policies.

Upon returning home from our annual summer vacation I discovered we had a catastrophic lightning strike that essentially fried all of the electronics in our home.

 

I prefer to unplug all this stuff before leaving for any period more than a day.

 

And whenever lightning inside 10miles or so the comps get the a.c. and ethernet pulled. (lesson learned from losing a 1200baud modem years ago ).

 

Can't bring myself to pay for the extended warranties. :blink:

 

I prefer to unplug all this stuff before leaving for any period more than a day.

 

And whenever lightning inside 10miles or so the comps get the a.c. and ethernet pulled. (lesson learned from losing a 1200baud modem years ago ).

 

Can't bring myself to pay for the extended warranties. :blink:

 

1200 baud? Hahaha Damn, that brought some fond memories. My first online experience was back in 1989 when I used a 300 baud modem on my Commodore 64C to connect to a BBS. Hahaha All ASCII graphics.

1200 baud? Hahaha Damn, that brought some fond memories.

 

:Big Grin:

 

Yeah roughly that time period (early 90s) but with an Atari (somewhere in the attic) used to download DUAT (Direct User Access Terminal) weather.

Its not an extended warranty, its a service plan :rolleyes:. This is just another good reminder to also invest in good surge protection along with insurance to cover electronics when the unexpected happens. I have everything on surge protectors, even my living room lamps.

In Australia new consumer protection legislation requires products to be warranted for the "expected lifetime" of the item. This makes extended warranties a con job although they are still sold to the uninformed.

 

Bruceb

Oh Lord.. I have too many stuff plugged in almost all the time. My Velodyne sub woofer in my living room has been on the last 10 years. It has never stopped working. I see the green light on it every time I switch off the lights in the living room. . LOL

 

Manny