lightning strike

[XWrench3]

our home computer was hit by lightning a few weeks back. i took it in to see if it could be saved, or if it needed to be buried. the tech repaired it. it needed a new part (whatever it is that the high speed internet connects to) and the old telephone modem (which we have never used anyway) was shorted out, so he just removed that. all of the data seems ok, thankfully. but i have kind of a weird glitch. the screen saver works intermittently, and i can not put the computer to sleep at all. i have tried changing the settings a couple of times. but nothing i try seems to make any difference. any ideas?

[deepu.djp]

I think some files may corrupted, try to reinstall the OS

[c0rr0sive]

Lightning strikes can cause some strange damage. If it was a direct strike your PC would be completely fried. Sounds like you had a network power surge which caused the 10/100Mbps nic to fry. But, if that fried, there is other potential damage to the system that wouldn't be noticed immediately, I suggest backing your data up, and having the shop look at it more closely, there is the possibility that the motherboard is damaged in a way that it will work, but will be somewhat iffy.

deepu.djp: Lighting strikes wont cause file corruption unless the file is open, and being wrote to at the same time, and that is at best. Most times, if your hit with a strike you loose the PC entirely if it was bad enough to corrupt any data.

[XWrench3]

if I reinstall the os, i will loose all of my data. i dont really know how to back all of it up to save it all. i tried that last time (a little over a year ago), and i lost a very significant amount of my files. i have an external hard drive, and thought that i had coppied all of it, but on many, all i copied was the shortcut, and the data was gone. when i was in school, computers were something that you built yourself from a kit, cost a LOT of money, and were basically glorified calculators. windows software, heck, bill gates probably wasn't even a gleam in his fathers eye yet! by the time i really became interested in computers, budget cuts were so far reaching in the state budgets, that adult education was completely cancelled. which leaves me to plug along, learning at a cave mans pace. the amount of computer knowledge that i poses, would most likely fit into most of you guys and gals pinky fingernail compared to what you know. anyway, i have not yet tried to plug the external hard drive in yet, so i do not know if that survived the lightning or not. i hope it did. as far as a mother board, if it is damaged, how would i go about finding out which one it would need, so i could shop for a new one? i HATE being ripped off, and i know a lot of times, a shop would much rather sell you a new computer, than even look at your old one. i would actually love to be able to build my own computer, i am just the kind of person that likes to do that kind of thing. if i was pysically able, i would build my own car. but i have serious physical limitations that keep me from doing that.

[carnageX]

Post your computer's brand / model. Usually though, it ends up being cheaper to get a new computer than a new board, especially if the computer is older.

[XWrench3]

It is a Hewlet - Packard A1720N. it is about 4 or 5 years old. but it does 10 times what i am capable of doing, so i am in no hurry to get rid of it.