07-09-2010, 03:58 AM
Might be covered by your house insurance, but I doubt it. You can buy surge protecters that offer a guarantee of various value to things plugged into them, but then again you have to prove your PC was damaged by an surge and not something else, which is nearly damn impossible.
Chances are your motherboard is fried, and probably other things. Powersuppy obviously took a hit.. the only real thing you can do is to take out each component of your machine and test it in other machines (sound card, graphics card, harddrives etc) to make sure they are ok... try the PSU on another machine if you can to see if thats running ok.
If the PC was powered off at the time chances are the RAM and the CPU would be fine, RAM would be easy to check anyways as above. If you're lucky you'll just have to replace the motherboard and PSU.
Awkward testing everything like this esecpially if you don't have another PC to hand - you're in for a fun night. Of course you can hand it in somewhere to be tested but you have to take their word on it and might cost you a fair few bucks for testing alone.
Word of advice.. you probably use a power block to plug all your computer gear in. Fork out an extra 10 to 15 dollah to get one with a surge protector on it. Can even get ones that your network/broadband connection go's through incase the surge comes in via your phoneline/broadband line. They're not fool proof but it might have saved your machine.
If your screen is dead as in no light when you power it on its probably the fuse in the plug thats fried.. hopfully thats all thats wrong there.
Chances are your motherboard is fried, and probably other things. Powersuppy obviously took a hit.. the only real thing you can do is to take out each component of your machine and test it in other machines (sound card, graphics card, harddrives etc) to make sure they are ok... try the PSU on another machine if you can to see if thats running ok.
If the PC was powered off at the time chances are the RAM and the CPU would be fine, RAM would be easy to check anyways as above. If you're lucky you'll just have to replace the motherboard and PSU.
Awkward testing everything like this esecpially if you don't have another PC to hand - you're in for a fun night. Of course you can hand it in somewhere to be tested but you have to take their word on it and might cost you a fair few bucks for testing alone.
Word of advice.. you probably use a power block to plug all your computer gear in. Fork out an extra 10 to 15 dollah to get one with a surge protector on it. Can even get ones that your network/broadband connection go's through incase the surge comes in via your phoneline/broadband line. They're not fool proof but it might have saved your machine.
If your screen is dead as in no light when you power it on its probably the fuse in the plug thats fried.. hopfully thats all thats wrong there.