Thinkpads Forum

Hey all. i just won a thinkpad 600E "parts or repair" it had a bout with lighting and lost, I am replaceing the mother board wich i think "should"
correct the problem, but this is my first time dealing with a lighting strike.
dose this mean the ram is no good, and what about the hardrive?
any help would be great.
thanks guys.

The hard drive from my 760cd is still working after 3 years as is the cd rom drive, and memory (ram), the rest has resisted efforts so far but I haven't tried very hard. I believe the lightning came in on the phoneline to the internal modem, the AC adapter was protected by a uninteruptable power supply.

I bought another 760cd and swapped the parts in.

what??? I diden't quite get all that, so is the hardrive and ram good?

There's only one way to find out if the parts are any good after a lightning strike. Generally lightning will fry the power supply or modem, and sometimes "bleed through" to the motherboard. The hard drive should be okay, the RAM questionable. It all depends on how much of a spike the computer actually saw. If there are scortch or burn marks on the MB, I'd say the RAM is probably toast. If it's limited to the PS or modem, the RAM and maybe even the processor is still good. From the modem it's usually the port support chips that get fried, mainly buffers. If one of them shorts it could freeze operation of the processor and/or RAM without causing damage. Plugging in bad memory shouldn't cause harm to a good working machine. A hard drive could be shorted to the point it burns a port out, but that's unlikely without signs of physical damage.

Thanks farna i enjoy your help. all good advice, it got zapped through the power supply. LoL
your pretty good.

Laptop_wizard wrote:Thanks farna i enjoy your help. all good advice, it got zapped through the power supply.

That's pretty rare as the power bricks will usually sacrifice themselves before passing any spikes or surges.

Are you sure the spike didn't get in via the modem? That's much more common in these circumstances, although the outcome is usually the same, a dead MB. Any added memory might be salvageable, but I'd always consider it suspect. HD might be useful as well, along with any optical drives or the floppy, the display, etc.

Regards,

James

Yeah the seller said it was through the power supply.

I have to admit that I was thinking about experience with a couple desktops that got zapped. Forgot about the power brick, but it could short and pass a surge to the DC/DC supply in the laptop. I'd think/hope that wouldn't happen, but if it got a direct hit on the line going into the house it could have got that much of a jolt.

Wizard, don't you have 2-3 of these 600Es around? I wouldn't plug that brick into anything, wouldn't even try it, but the other parts you can test out in another computer. If the memory and processor card test good, I'd pull a known good DC/DC supply and try replacing it -- unless there are signs of obvious damage on the MB.

lightnig does strange things , we had a strike last year took out our cable .cable modem is fine and still working.
took out the router and NICS on 3 pcs . all three moniors where distorted ,deguassing brought them back.

as to your question it may have fried all or some componets , hard to say , just keep replacing untill it works .

also keep in mind that componets that do work intially may have been weakned and will start failing soon

Well Yes, the motherboard is no good, i am replaceing it. i diden't quite understand your message but thankyou very much for your time .
I am guessing they are good, i do remember the seller stateing that the AC adapter was still good.
regards

Hehehe....We had a storm come by about 2 months ago....37 NICs gone. They were on terms on the shop floor, so they weren't protected like the office machines.....and those were old PCs, took some doing to find new cards. Surges can do strange things....don't assume anything


-Toe