Bad Day at Bandit Camp

So night before last, we had a bad thunderstorm. I wasn't worried, though, because all my computer equipment, even the speakers, the router, the modems (yes, plural) are all on surge protected battery backups... specifically, APC UPSes.

But there was a way in. I guess there's always a way in. My DSL modem was plugged directly into the phone jack. I guess I did this because I was worried about latency or signal degradation from going through the little "phone cord" surge protector sockets in the UPS... besides, how often does that happen?

Well, I've learned my lesson. 2 nights ago I had a surge come in through the phone line and cause me over $100 dollars of damage with probably more to follow later. Allow me to explain.

Regard the image below -


This is a quick scribble of the affected portion of my home network. The power spike came in through the phone jack, frying the DSL modem, frying both on-board gigabit ethernet adapters on the motherboard of my new gaming rig, continuing on to fry my wireless router, and through that frying the NIC in my fileserver and frying the cable modem feeding the wireless router. All dead. Thank goodness Verizon and the Cable company provided me with replacements in short order (next day, basically). I also had to go to the store and buy replacement network cards and a new router. I'm thinking I'm going to want to buy a new motherboard for my gaming rig as well, because even aside from the ethernet adapters who knows what else got fried on the motherboard that I don't know about yet and is just waiting to asplode? Sigh. Well, my DSL data cord is going through a surge protector now, I'll tell ya! Learned my lesson, I did.