Obliterated by lightning

[blizey]

Exactly one week ago, husband and I were sitting on the back porch, in the middle of the night, enjoying a thunderstorm. A gorgeous show of intense lightning and thunder lol! Then it struck, in (or near) our yard. He said he saw a large orange flash on the ground. For about 5-10 seconds, it felt like you were in a vaccume and the air around us was just crackling with static electricity (except louder). I couldn't even tell where the noise was comming from - it was all around. Figured then, it was time to go inside!

Next morning the pc would not turn on. Hummm? No doubt in my mind what had happened. I pulled out my new v92 modem to see 4 nice burn marks. A repair shop suggested it was the power supply, so I purchased one and still nothing. Took computer and monitor in for diagnostics and they were both "cooked".

I think that homeowners insurance is going to cover it. So, yesterday I picked up a new PC.

It has a AMD Athlon XP 2800 Processor - better than the old Celeron 1.4 ghz I had. 512 Mb memory - much better than the old 128 mb. 80 GB hard drive - more than enough for me. It came with a CD-RW/DVD-ROM and it even included the Recovery DVD with the package (I hate when they leave those out).

Oh yes! Definitely purchased a good surge protector lol! So, unplug that computer and get a good surge protector.

[Play_The_0dds]

sorry to hear about the loss, looks like you came out better. just curious was the hard drive cooked or were you able to slave it and recover your stuff? last night we had a terrible thunderstorm and i flipped the switches on all my surge protectors to kill any chance of a fried computer this morning, being i am off work today was planning on using it to play a few games and look up some stuff.

[blizey]

Thanks Player - Actually, if the insurance company pays up, it won't be a loss at all. I did ask about the hard drive and they said that they couldn't get that far?? I took the old computer and it will be a project to work on. I've never messed around with the guts of a computer, and I can get familiar this way.

Fortunately, I just backed up my stuff at the end of April, so I really didn't loose much at all. Of course, you always forget to copy a few things.

[blizey]

What was "not understood? What exactly happened to your computer? Were you still under factory warranty or did you purchase an extended warranty? I can't decide whether to buy an extended warranty or not.

[Play_The_0dds]

i never buy extended warranty, if anything goes bad after a year, it's upgrade time anyway.

[LooseChippings]

A couple of years ago large well known company was in court for selling 3 year extended warranties ...

They sold the warranty to start from the purchase date so were actually selling the manufacturers first year warranty.

They also sold a 3 year extended warranty on a monitor that came with a manufacturers 3 year warranty.

Seems that it is the way that sales people make their commission on ALL electrical goods over here.

If you buy an extended warranty ensure that it starts at the end of the manufacturers warranty.

[blizey]

Originally posted by Play_The_0dds
i never buy extended warranty, if anything goes bad after a year, it's upgrade time anyway.

That's the truth. The computer industry is so competitive that after a years time, there are always upgrades that you want to have. I bought my first computer 1 1/2 yrs. ago. Now, for the same money, they give you a better processor, more ram, combo CD drive and other stuff that I do not yet know about like: cf/microdrive and sd/mmc/sm/ms/ms pro (what do you do with those)?

Yes Loosechippings, I thought that this warranty was interestingly worded too.

2 Year Plan: 1 year manufacturer's warranty + 1 year extended = 2 years. (In my book, that is a one year extended warranty.) Just a little play on words to make the offer appear to be better then it is.