Damn lightning

[Legacy777]

Had something rather weird happen this morning. We had some pretty bad thunder storms come through houston this morning.

One hit pretty close to where I live. I was in the bathroom at the time....scared the hell out of me.

Well I went out to my laptop and the internet connection was dead. I checked the router, and the light was off. I power cycled the router, and that didn't work. I plugged the network cable into a different port on the router and everything worked fine.

I checked the logs and the connection dumped right around the time when the lightning hit. I have a cat 5 cable going from the one room to the living room where my laptop is. it's running across the ceiling.

The only thing I can think of is that the wire in the cat 5 cable acted like an antenna and picked up some of the charge, which was large enough to zap the router, and kill that port. None of the other computers were affected.

Anyone seen anything like this before?

[legacycontinues]

Go wireless.....

Don't put an antenna on the outside of your house either!!

Sorry to hear about your router.

[petridish38]

I dont see any reason why that couldnt happen... Lightning will run through anything that conducts electricity. Killed one of our modems back in the 56K days . Also killed our AC compressor sometime between hurricane Frances and hurricane Jeanne.

Andrew

[legacycontinues]

HEY....another Floridian! Sweet!

[Legacy777]

The main thing is that nothing else connected to it got hurt.....only that one port on the router......and basically the copper in the cat5 picked up the electro static charge through the air.......just very strange.

I hate wireless with a passion. Don't get me started on it......

[Binford]

Most of the CAT5 out there is actually CAT5e, which is better protected. I guess i can see the old stuff do that. I dunno.

I have a wireless internet antenna mounted inside a closet, hooked up to a wireless router, with a wireless card in my laptop. I love wireless. It's just too bad my battery sucks so I have to plug my laptop into the wall.

[Legacy777]

yeah....this stuff I got back in 99 or 2000....not sure if the standard was 5e back then or not.

That's the nice thing of buying 50 ft. get ends, and make your own cables for super duper cheap.

[Legacy777]

Looks like the router is slowly dieing. More ports have started to tweak out, and I'm getting intermittant failures of port forwarding for services running behind the router.

Not sure if it's just old, or if the lightning took it out, or a combo of both. I've had it for about 3 years.

Hopefully the new one will fix the issues I have.

I really need to get some cat 6, and route the line in the attic, vs just throwing it up along the ceiling. It'll look nicer, and if it protects against this happening again....all the better.

[DLC]

You could also go for STP, which is going to be more expensive than standard twisted pair, but it has a shielded sheath around the internal wiring. I don't know if that'd help or not.

I'd also look for plenum cable, which uses a plastic that doesn't burn toxic when it heats up or is exposed to flame and melts.

I've used wireless for a long time, best solution IMO.

[Legacy777]

I'll have to take a look at what I can get a hold of and prices. This is just a rental, so I'm a little less motivated to go all out.

I'm not a big wireless fan. I do transfer large files every now and then, so I like my 100mb connection

[legacycontinues]

Josh, I have a proxim Skyline Wired/wireless B router you can have. It just needs a 12volt power adapter from radio shack.

Let me know if you want it. You have helped me out so I will spring for shipping too.

[Legacy777]

I appreciate the offer, but I already bought another router like I have now.

Thanks though.

[dzx]

Reminds me of a good quote.

It's not that there is too many fools, it's that the lightning isn't distributed right.

[Legacy777]

Reminds me of a good quote.

It's not that there is too many fools, it's that the lightning isn't distributed right.

hahaha....that's a good one

[Tleg93]

I knew a guy in college who was struck by lightning like three times I think. Needless to say he wasn't right in the head. I asked his roomates who were friends of his about whether or not he was lying and they said that it was true for what it's worth.