Lightning! what fried!

Kuper2

New Member
Hello I have a gateway pc with windows 7 home premium. Intel core i7 2600,AMD Radeon HD 6670 2gb,
2TB hard drive,8gb ddr3 ram.
It crashes but still turns on. Did have black screen and buzzing. The power supply fan is turning. The rest of the fans are going to! Thanks for your help!
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
A power surge could have got a lot of hardware. The bad thing with OEM machines is that most of them don't have system speakers to hear bios beep codes. If you remove the ram you should hear continuous beeping basically, but without a speaker, you won't hear anything. If you aren't familiar with how to diagnose issues, then you will have to take it in and have them do it for you. You need parts to replace to see what is bad.
 

Kuper2

New Member
A power surge could have got a lot of hardware. The bad thing with OEM machines is that most of them don't have system speakers to hear bios beep codes. If you remove the ram you should hear continuous beeping basically, but without a speaker, you won't hear anything. If you aren't familiar with how to diagnose issues, then you will have to take it in and have them do it for you. You need parts to replace to see what is bad.
I did have some beeping before little long beeps with a black screen. What does that mean you suspect? what is a oem machine mean?
 

tremmor

Well-Known Member
its a name brand like HP, dell etc. Not a home build.
OEM Original Equipment Manufacture.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
I did have some beeping before little long beeps with a black screen. What does that mean you suspect? what is a oem machine mean?
If you do hear beeping, then you need to figure out the beep code. There are long and short beeps. But as I said before, you need access to replacement parts which you probably don't have, like a computer repair shop would. They can have it figured out in probably 30 minutes or less. Probably be $30-$40 for a diagnostic fee though. Check around for lowest price.

If you can somehow record the beeps and upload the file here, we can listen to it and tell you what it means.
 
If you suspect that the damage was caused by lightning ... call your homeowner's insurance agent and file an insurance claim.
Really. Been there, done that. There's no easier (or better) fix. :)
 

_Kyle_

Well-Known Member
First thing I would suggest is getting a surge protector.

EDIT: Just found out that surge protectors do not protect from lightning strikes, my mistake.
 
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Twiki

Active Member
Brand name computers means cheap PSUs. Very little power protection from them. High end or home built PCs usually use quality PSUs for power protection. Worth the money.

I usually pull the plug during bad weather. Though my Seasonic PSU protected my system a few times already I'm not pushing my luck.
 

bbudesa

Member
Pull the plug when you know a storm is coming, and go read a book. Remember those? ;)

Don't simply turn it off. Lightning doesn't care if the switch is turned off or on! It'll getcha!
 
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