Isn't that one of Murphy's Laws?

 

From: John Aldrich [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 9:44 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Guilty, will change after reading this.

 

Yeah... there's something I read once... goes something like this: "A $500 
piece of equipment will protect a 50ยข fuse by blowing first." J That was a 
paraphrase, of course, but you get the gist.

 

  

 

From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 8:53 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Guilty, will change after reading this.

 

I had a lightning strike *near* my home that took out an internal modem, and a 
sound card -- my beloved Gravis UltraSound.

 

I thought the whole PC was dead because the computer would not even turn on 
with the sound card in the machine.   I took everything out to reseat them, and 
that's how I was able to determine that the sound card was toast (although it 
didn't smell like toast).   Any machine I put it in would just fail to power up 
at all.

 

The modem didn't cause that problem, but wouldn't dial out anymore.  All in 
all, it was a relatively minor loss that seemed like a whole lot more in the 
beginning.

 

Oh, and the PC was off at that time, although I hadn't disconnected the modem.  
 My phone, which was connected through the other side of the modem, was spared.

 

-ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 6:07 PM, Ben Scott <[email protected]> wrote:

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 5:53 PM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle
<[email protected]> wrote:
> 3. During an ACTUAL strike on the structure, the ambient step potential is
> several gazillion volts per foot for dozens of yards. Grounding does not
> mitigate this fact. Unplugging does not mitigate this fact.

 This.

 We had lightning hit our building once.  It fried NICs and hubs all
over the place, including in stuff that was switched off.  It fried
one serial port in one PC (but not the other serial port in the same
PC).  It causes an electrical outlet with nothing plugged into it to
explode out of the wall into little bitty pieces.  It fried one phase
in a transformer, leaving the other two phases working.  It killed AC
compressors in the basement.

 I've also been told by our ISP about an incident where lightning
apparently found a fiber cable was the best path to ground, and fried
the equipment at one end.  "But it's not a conductor."  Lighting jumps
open air. We're talking millions of volts.  At that kind of potential,
*everything* is a conductor.

 Lightning can do whatever the hell it wants to.  All bets are off.


-- Ben

~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>  ~

 

 

 

 

 

~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>  ~

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