Just like "Relationship George" will kill "Independent George".. .so too a violent thunderstorm with lightning, can kill your computer!
Saw another fried computer yesterday. Zapped during a bad storm. The motherboard (the system board of the computer) was evidently fried. The machine was DOA; a very nice 2 year old laptop.
Spoke to a friend yesterday who is also a computer support guy. He had a customer who lost
two computers to lightning in
two different states on the same day due to a line of thunderstorms passing through the eastern U.S.
The only real protection against lightning strikes or power surges is to unplug your computer from its power source. In fact, unplugging all the "innies" to your computer is even better...unplug anything that 'goes to the outside' including ethernet (network) cables and telephone lines. If you insist on leaving you computer plugged in during summer storms, at least turn it off. That will give you some protection. Leaving your computer plugged in and turned on during a storm is asking for trouble!
Oh, and if you think that your computer is protected because it's plugged into a 'surge protector', think again.
MW
