2. misc-audio
  3. 166272-20253

Lightning and electronics and my Macbook Air

A couple of nights ago lightning came over my house. It seemed everything was fine until I tried to turn on my Macbook air. It's' a total brick and no amount of different resets are working.  My next step is to attempt a battery removal.

Every other PC (3 of them) and audio gear is on a surge protector.  The Macbook was left charging directly into the wall.  I had completely forgotten about it when the thunder started.  In fact the charger is still working fine. Just the Macbook.  So whatever surge came through managed to find the weakest link in some bit of silicon.

I want to point out that this happened in spite of having a whole house surge protector which is still telling me it's fine.

So, as I was saying, belt and suspenders are the way to go. Whole house surge protector + surge protectors at your point of use for anything more delicate than a washer and dryer.
erik_squires
Post removed 
ebm
9,311 posts
 
hilde 33 again I'm wrong I'm so very sorry.
ebm
9,311 posts
 
Sorry about your Mac.
dletch2
455 posts
 
To understand lighting / surge protection, you have to think of the path from outside your house all the way to equipment.


Whole home surge protection is an excellent idea and one I have myself. They can withstand very large event. Not a direct hit, but a fairly close hit. Let’s say you get a surge a ways away, perhaps your whole home unit clamps the peaks to 1000V. The inductance/resistance in the house wires is enough that the small amount of surge protection in your electronics will protect them. Now let’s say you get a close hit. Your whole home unit now clamps to 2000V. Unfortunately, even with your house wire this is enough to blow some of the electronics.


Now if you add local surge protection in a power bar, your whole house protects to 2000, and then the local surge unit perhaps to 1000, which is what enters your equipment which survives. If you didn’t have the whole home, the local surge would say take 4000V, and pass 2500 to the equipment destroying it.


It is not unusual to lose home appliances in surge events. 
More to discover