I was hit by lightning!

I posted this on our XP11 forum and received some good input  -which again raised a couple of technical issues where I would appreciate any comments you guys can provide.Would appreciate if somebody could provide some technical input regarding the below scenarios.

I was literally hit by lightning which blew out my ASUS TUF z370 motherboard and power supply. (There may be more damage but this is what my tech guy tells me is the probable damage ).

The lightning impulse came via my Internet supplier's coax cable - through their router and then via the cable to my mesh router and my PC which were the only units cabled. I don't think this access is covered by the power supply you mentioned. (This referenced a recommendation to use a separate battery backup power supply)

The routers were powered on for Internet services and WiFi but the PC was turned off but cabled,

1. Scenario. Get a new motherboard - but the 370 is out of production....

2. Scenario. Move upto the z390 motherboard which would involve going to an i9 chip, new RAM?

3. Scenario. Since I have to upgrade the motherboard should I consider moving to a Ryzen solution?

Given the current status of XP11, where I was running rock solid on my i7 OC chip,
and a forthcoming XP12, what scenario would give me the best flexibility, give that I am a solitary 1PC/1screen operator without any other desire than to be able to aviate and navigate quality aircraft in good scenery etc?

Any advice from somebody who may recently have upgraded would be appreciated. 

Another comment I received was as follows:

"You can expect a lot of near term failures when lightning hits, lots of other stuff will fail soon.\"

This also raises my concern about the best wat to proceed.

We all know that insurance may cover some of the cost, so, since I will have to cover the rest myself I would like to make the best of it.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Bruce Martin

I don’t use XP, so can’t say anything on that.

But changing to a Z390 MB doen not mean upgrading your CPU to i9.

Your current CPU will fit, if it has survived. Same for your RAM.

So if only your MB and power supply are damaged, replacing them would be the easiest way out.

 

Fleng200..

Thanks for getting back to me.

That's the understanding I have.

The issue may be that the z370 is no longer available.

1 hour ago, fleng200 said:

Your current CPU will fit, if it has survived. Same for your RAM.

 

Yes. How can you predict at this point what if anything survived?  I have insurance coverage for this, though there is a deductible.  For me it would be new system time...  Especially when they can be found with GPU cards not otherwise readily available.

I'm with you.

The actually box is replaceable - it's the set up and data that is a time hog I would like to avoid.

I live in south Florida - lotta lightning - so I always try to shut down my PC during a storm... (I get WiFi thru a router in another room).   

Best of luck to you, and I hope you get back up running without losing any important data!

I hate hearing stories like this. Years ago in our business we took a lightning hit to the cable ground that propagated through our server room and took out several mother boards, drives and power supplies. Fortunately we had bullet proof, triple redundant backups.

The fact it's possible for it to happen like this shows the TERRIBLE design of coax.

On 8/22/2021 at 2:55 PM, schaefer said:

Fleng200..

Thanks for getting back to me.

That's the understanding I have.

The issue may be that the z370 is no longer available.

I meant, upgrading to a Z390 MB is no problem for your current CPU. As long as that one is still usable.

If you need tot replace the CPU as well, upgrading to the newer and current CPU’s and applicable MB will be the next step. And more costly….

Edited August 23, 20214 yr by fleng200

https://www.avsim.com/profile/449405-fleng200/, https://www.avsim.com/profile/428819-somiller/ , https://www.avsim.com/profile/389864-overspeed3/ , https://www.avsim.com/profile/261498-fppilot/ ,

 

To all of the above I can provide a final update to close this thread.

All of your input was useful to me, and I was lucky insomuch that I only needed to have the 2 routers replaced as well as the power supply on the PC, most of which was covered by insurance, so I was able to upgrade to an Asus ROG GT-AX1000 which is really a monster of a router.

I also had some very interesting and positive discussions with my ISP on how to set up one of these machines...

So thanks again for your input and happy flying...

That is good news.

Apparently, your old power supply had some very good over current protection, isolating everything behind it from the blast.

Happy flying.

On 8/22/2021 at 4:17 PM, overspeed3 said:

I live in south Florida - lotta lightning - so I always try to shut down my PC during a storm... (I get WiFi thru a router in another room).   

 

Always good to shut down in a lightning storm. Not enough though, as you've discovered you need to unplug everything from the mains.

On 9/24/2021 at 1:13 PM, fleng200 said:

That is good news.

Apparently, your old power supply had some very good over current protection, isolating everything behind it from the blast.

Happy flying.

 

Not exactly. PSU OCP is designed to trip many times. If It destroyed the PSU it didn't do its job 100% effectively.

Not surprising though with something as powerful as a lightning strike. The voltage between the cloud, and in this case house, can be in the order of millions of volts  before the atmosphere breaks down and allows thousands of amps of current to flow. 

So I don't think we should be too hard on the PSU. 😁

On 9/23/2021 at 9:34 AM, schaefer said:

https://www.avsim.com/profile/449405-fleng200/, https://www.avsim.com/profile/428819-somiller/ , https://www.avsim.com/profile/389864-overspeed3/ , https://www.avsim.com/profile/261498-fppilot/ ,

 

To all of the above I can provide a final update to close this thread.

All of your input was useful to me, and I was lucky insomuch that I only needed to have the 2 routers replaced as well as the power supply on the PC, most of which was covered by insurance, so I was able to upgrade to an Asus ROG GT-AX1000 which is really a monster of a router.

I also had some very interesting and positive discussions with my ISP on how to set up one of these machines...

So thanks again for your input and happy flying...

 

Was there any damage to your house?