Lightning strike

On the early hours of Tuesday morning it appears the local area suffered a lightning strike, which got into the BT network.

It's blown my trusty Netgear DGN2000 up - completely dead and it smells of burning plastic - happened to neighbours too.

No bother, i've got a DG834PN in the loft. Plugged it in and all is well downstairs.

I've got CAT5 running around the side of the house alongside a BT phone extension and on the end of it is a WNR2000 which I use as a switch / wireless repeater.

The WNR2000 was madly flashing so I turned it off. Turned it back on and my iPhone and other devices would not connect to it. Took it downstairs to the PN, plugged it in and it was fine but it won't work on the CAT5 all I get is 169 addresses and assigning a static IP doesn't work either - it's dropping packets - even if I plug my laptop directly into the CAT5, it drops packets.

The network card on my work laptop and Xbox 360 appear to be dead - these were plugged directly into the DGN2000.

Has the lightning destroyed my CAT5??

Surely it would just pass through it, there are no signs of scorching etc.

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

Has the lightning destroyed my CAT5??

Surely it would just pass through it, there are no signs of scorching etc.

It certainly looks like it!

High-Voltage surges can do all sorts of damage that is NOT readily visible (or would smell of burning).

Have to suggest that it is a case of:- If in doubt, replace it!

The Cat5 is probably ok, a continuity tester would be needed to check the wiring, but you may have blown over voltage protection circuitry in the 360 and laptop.

Time to get a simple known working switch and see if the Ethernet link lights work.

If you've only tried them on the WNR2000 then most likely that has sacrificed itself to protect other hardware

With a 1m patch lead plugged from the DG834PN to the WNR2000 everything works fine so i'm pretty sure the WNR2000 has survived.

In the room the WNR is in, there is a Sky HD box which blew it's HDMI cable but survived.

The PSU on my older 360 blew too - it was plugged into the mains but turned off.

I'm right in thinking a surge protector would have done naff all with this kind of voltage?

Sounds like a substantial hit so time to test everything.

The surge protector might have helped, and if not so long as you comply with the insurance terms of them you are covered.

Following on from Andrew's suggestion of testing the wiring, keep in mind that if you are trying to do so with a simple continuity meter, that there are 3 Twisted Pairs, ie 6 wires.

The initial testing is simple, that each wire is continuous end-to-end.

Then you have to test that each wire is insulated from ALL of the others; and that is when a chart becomes useful, helping ensure that you have tested between each and every wire.

You also have to keep in mind that manipulating the cable and wires and connectors, to do such tests, can alter the situation, eg broken ends of a wire may temporarily make contact during testing; and a short between two or more wires may be temporarily parted - both resulting in the cable appearing to be OK; but as it is restored to its normal position, the break and/or short re-appear.

I have seen such intermittent and transients faults all too often.

Assuming the wiring run is reasonably accessible, I would recommend simply replacing the cable, if it remains suspect.

It actually blew a hole in the roof of a house a few hundred meters away. Houses in close proximity have lost literally everything electrical.

I'll see if one of the network lads at work can lend me a cable tester. The phone extension is running alongside the CAT5 at the moment.

Is it best to keep these apart?

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

It actually blew a hole in the roof of a house a few hundred meters away. Houses in close proximity have lost literally everything electrical.

Many years ago, before we had anything like Broadband etc, my House was struck by Lightning.

Lightning is unique every time it hits & what it affects (& what it doesn't affect) is bizarre & inconsistent (***)!

You just have to work through item by item, replacing as necessary.

As I've said before:- if in doubt, replace! This will save a lot of subsequent frustrations when you find things not quite working as you expected (even if you have undertaken basic tests which are successful)!


Edited to provide the following example!

(***)
AS an example the external telephone wiring, to my house, was blown up but the internal wiring was not affected.

However, a house 200m up the road (fed from the same Telephone Pole) had his Telephone blown off the wall!

Edited by deleted (Wed 24-Jul-13 13:24:31)

I've had 3 lightning strikes on my phone line in the last 15 years. The first two times, it tooks out lots of equipment. The third time was last year, but since then I'd installed some devices similar to (but not the same) as: this (Amazon link).

I got two phone ones I think for both phone and broadband sockets of the ADSL faceplate, and ethernet ones for the ports coming out of my router. I wired the earth leads from them into a junction box and a cable coming from that terminating in a normal mains plug with only the earth pin wired, which I then plug into a wall socket.

In that last lightning strike last year, it blew up my BT master socket, fried the ends of the patch cable coming from it, but the protectors on the master socket sacrificed themselves and saved the lightning getting through to my network.

My neighbours also suffered the same lightning strike, but they didn't have protection and it blew up their router as well as the master socket. I think they're lucky!

I don't think "normal" surge protectors will protect against lightning strikes. If lightning is able to travel many miles between clouds and between cloud and ground, then it is able to jump across a gap of a couple of millimetres! You need one of these devices with an earth lead I think.

Edited by deleted (Wed 24-Jul-13 13:57:41)

In terms of lightning protection difficult to say as lightning will arc a long a way, hence how it gets out of the sky.

The induced currents from a near strike which you had then keeping cables apart may reduce the impact of any incidents.