Crazy thunderstorm here last night. Lightning stuck the untility pole in our yard. Really shook the house. Surprised no windows broke.

Casualties are as follows:

3 rooms with no power, flipped breaker and they are back on (yay!) minus one dimmer switch that controls a ceiling fixture (turns on stuck on half brightness.)

Internet cable modem. Toasted. It was on a strip with surge protection. Local cable guys already out and replaced it. Other things on the same strip appear fine.

Cheap 2nd monitor (not on a surge protector, my bad) in my office space which was connected to my iMac. Monitor powers up and logo screen comes on but that's it.

The thunderbolt port on my iMac the monitor was connected to appears to be a loss as well. The computer itself was on a UPS with surge protection. All other computer functions seem fine. 2nd thunderbolt port seems to work OK with external drives but not an external monitor so it may be boogered as far as video goes as well.

So my days of having a second monitor on this machine appear to be over as there is no other way to connect one

Moral of the story- thunderbolt and lightning is a no-no. Put EVERYTHING on surge protectors and still cross your fingers.

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Athens, OH

"The thunderbolt port on my iMac the monitor was connected to appears to be a loss as well. The computer itself was on a UPS with surge protection. All other computer functions seem fine. 2nd thunderbolt port seems to work OK with external drives but not an external monitor so it may be boogered as far as video goes as well."

Seem to me that you didn't rule out that the monitor itself (or the connecting cable) is ll that is bad.

"Other things on the same strip appear fine."

remarkable that one of those things protected anything at all. I've always assumed that serious lightning would kill those things... Maybe all of the juice got diverted to the modem??

good luck with this stuff - I always complain that we never get and interesting, exciting weather (like BIG thunderstorms), but I sure as hell don't want to have to deal with the downside of it.

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archipirata
Internet cable modem. Toasted. It was on a strip with surge protection. Local cable guys already out and replaced it. Other things on the same strip appear fine.

I wonder if the surge went through the coax cable instead. There are surge protectors with coax protection as well. Though around here, the installers would always disconnect them if I had them hooked up and run the cable straight to the device (lightning isn't much of an issue here).

I have one of the UPS protectors with a cable connection but it's the one in my office, not the one where the modem is. I think it did come through the cable being that everything else on the power strip is OK.

I have an another monitor that I used to test the thunderbolt ports and it's really strange. The computer can see the monitor (it shows up in display preferences) but the monitor doesn't seem to be able to get a signal from the computer. So actually my monitor might be OK and it might just be the ports on the computer that are fried or something further up the circuit that controls video out.

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Athens, OH



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2020 03:17PM by archipirata.

So your Thunderbolt was killed by a lightning bolt...

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It is what it is.

With a DIRECT hit (or near direct hit) NO "surge protector" you'd be willing to pay for will be able to clamp down and withstand the MILLIONS of volts a lightning strike will deliver. The jolt happens SO fast that any typical home unit will simply be overwhelmed. IF you kept the warranty card, a quality manufacturer (I'm thinking APC; there are others) would probably cover your losses up to the limit stated on said warranty card. Check the specs on each surge protector that got fried and do a little Googling. You may be happily surprised. If you're not covered, you know who NOT to spend your money on when you replace.

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N-OS X-tasy!
So your Thunderbolt was killed by a lightning bolt...

Climatic cannibalism.

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Mama Mia...

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Yoyodyne ArtWorks

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N-OS X-tasy!
So your Thunderbolt was killed by a lightning bolt...

Climatic cannibalism.

Catastrophic.

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It is what it is.

Add one HP all-in-one wireless printer to the casualty list. As well as 1 compact fluorescent bulb that was 17 watts but is now about 5 watts.

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Athens, OH