Lightning struck , black screen on monitor

[Acousticx]

Lightning struck my house the other night and now whenever I turn my pc on , nothing will display on the monitor. Occasionally it will go to bios but will go black right after. It acknowledges that it is plugged into something but not getting a signal.

Things I have tried :

Moving ram around
New monitor
On board video
Different cables


Need some help on this one

[Bolkonsky]

Have you tried resetting your CMOS and BIOS? Usually there's a jumper for the CMOS, or a button on the back of your motherboard. To clear the BIOS, unplug the computer, press the power button, take out the battery (looks like a big watch battery if you're unfamiliar with it) count to twenty, put the battery back in, plug in the computer, and try starting it.

[Acousticx]

Did both and it got to the press enter to start normally this time but went to black before I could press enter. Then it just made it to the bios and then eventually it never made it to bios

[Bolkonsky]

Do you have a spare power supply?

[Acousticx]

Not on me, no. It doesn't look like it got burnt or anything but I could be wrong

[Bolkonsky]

OK my bet is that it's your power supply. I talked to Crazyeyesreaper and he agrees. His guess is you blew some capacitors, which would explain why it can make it to the BIOS sometimes.

That said, even if you were to buy a new one, there's no guarantee that the problems stop there. Lightning strike means that there's a lot of potential for damaged or ruined hardware.

[Acousticx]

OK my bet is that it's your power supply. I talked to Crazyeyesreaper and he agrees. His guess is you blew some capacitors, which would explain why it can make it to the BIOS sometimes.

That said, even if you were to buy a new one, there's no guarantee that the problems stop there. Lightning strike means that there's a lot of potential for damaged or ruined hardware.

Hmm, everything else in the machine seems like its working just fine but idk. Very unfortunate because I was trying to sell this rig so I could build a new one.

[k/t]

My computer was damaged by a surge during a storm a few weeks ago, and now I'm waiting for a replacement motherboard. The hard drive is ok, and hopefully the processor is too. At least its fan still works. The monitor and the power supply are fine as well.

My brother said an uninterruptible power supply will protect me from future lightning-caused surges as well as give me time to power down the computer if the electricity from the grid gets cut. Is this right?

Also, my father handled my hard drive a little carelessly and now there's a fingerprint over the shiny little circle on the underneath side. The manual said you the underneath side should not be touched. The hard drive is working fine still, but should I wipe the little circle with something soft, like the cloth I use to clean my glasses? Will that fingerprint cause a lower data transfer rate or disk read errors? I don't know much about computers, and after having my beloved computer die in my arms, I'm extra paranoid.


Acousticx, first my power supply took a bit to start after the surge, then it started working normally. We took out the RAM and the hard drive and short circuited the motherboard with a paper clip. The power supply worked, the processor fan worked, but the motherboard didn't. My brother said that it's hard to tell if it's only the motherboard that's dead, and that I'll have to replace the parts one by one. I didn't have a compatible one that I could swap in to see if it was indeed the problem, or a compatible processor, so I'm stuck with buying new (but used, since it's hard to find new computer components from 6 years ago) ones.

[Bolkonsky]

My computer was damaged by a surge during a storm a few weeks ago, and now I'm waiting for a replacement motherboard. The hard drive is ok, and hopefully the processor is too. At least its fan still works. The monitor and the power supply are fine as well.

My brother said an uninterruptible power supply will protect me from future lightning-caused surges as well as give me time to power down the computer if the electricity from the grid gets cut. Is this right?

A UPS will only last you a few minutes to a half hour depending on how much you spend, and will not protect you from lighting strikes, they're far too powerful. The best way to protect your computer from lightning is to turn it off during storms.

Also, my father handled my hard drive a little carelessly and now there's a fingerprint over the shiny little circle on the underneath side. The manual said you the underneath side should not be touched. The hard drive is working fine still, but should I wipe the little circle with something soft, like the cloth I use to clean my glasses? Will that fingerprint cause a lower data transfer rate or disk read errors? I don't know much about computers, and after having my beloved computer die in my arms, I'm extra paranoid.

No you're fine.

[Acousticx]

Went to local computer store and they tested it with a new psu and same result. Said current one was just fine. They suggested it was the mobo, any idea where I could get an ancient asus m3a76-cm ? Lol

[k/t]

Same place where I got the replacement for my ancient one: EBay. I can't believe it's been 6 and a half years since I've bought my computer. You'll probably have to get a used one, like I did, since it's impossible to find new ones after so long.

What I meant by "protect me from lightning strikes" was "I want something with a really good circuit breaker, unlike the piece of crap ones my 40-year-old piece of crap house has". And I want something to keep feeding my computer power in those instances in which the electricity goes off for a split second. My lamp flickers, my monitor is fine, my electronic alarm clock is fine, but my computer shuts off. My brother said a UPS is what I want. I'll go do some research now.

[Bolkonsky]

Give me your full system specs, you can replace it with a slightly newer board. Newegg still has some AM2+ boards hanging around, if that's your socket.

[Acousticx]

Amd Athlon x4 ii quad core (fairly sure it's am2)
Gtx 460 se (taking it out tho)
Ddr2 ram (1066. I think )
Some 250 gb hd
500 watt psu

[mrmouth]

Sounds like your bios. In which case it could be a fried bios chip which can be replaced but isn't worth the trouble with that board. Or the chip could have taken a hit and it could be fine, it just needs to be flashed again.

Given the interconnected pathways on boards (the actual lines you see on the circuit board) these days there is virtually no way that a capacitor or some other electrical component on the board could have fried, and that it would start at all. Same with a PSU. Most are designed to not start at all if one component goes, so it doesn't then cause potential damage to your system.

[Bolkonsky]

OK yeah, any AM2 motherboard should work fine then, just double check to make sure it has PCI-E 2.0 x16 and enough DIMM slots.

[Acousticx]

http://www.neobits.com/biostar_micro...8.html?atc=gbs

Will this one work? One of the few I could find.

[Bolkonsky]

How many physical RAM chips do you have? That one supports maximum of two, whereas your old board supported 4 but you may only be using two. Other than that, it's the same size (Micro ATX) and supports your GPU, it should be fine.

[Acousticx]

Only one, does it support 1066?

[Bolkonsky]

It should.

[Acousticx]

That one was back ordered and they wanted 25 for shipping. Any suggestions for other boards?