My GTX 1080 won't work after a lightning strike, need help to get it replaced

[Follmann]

Hello,
A couple weeks ago, a lightning strike seems to have hit the electrical grid somewhere nearby. My PC was turned on at the time. Power immediatelly went down, and I even received a small discharge through my headset. When power was restored, I went about assessing the damage. Surprisingly, my good old power supply (Corsair TX Series™ TX650 — 80 PLUS) seems intact, but my new VGA (Asus GeForce® GTX 1080 ROG-STRIX-GTX1080-O8G-11GBPS) isn't working. The leds do turn on but I get no video response. I tried it with another monitor and in my friend's setup, to no avail. The rest of my build seems fine, though, as it works normally with my old GTX 760.

Unfortunatelly, I can't get it returned, but I can get compensation from my provider. While they do recognize the event happened, they argue that since the power supply is fine, the event couldn't have caused the damage to my VGA. This isn't my area of expertise, so I'd appreciate if anybody could explain how the damage could possibly be restricted to my VGA (well, my router and air conditioning were damaged as well, but that was already taken care of), and if possible provide any sources I could use to back up my claim. Thank you.

 

[kanewolf]

Since you have multiple items which were damaged at the same time, that is pretty good evidence you had an event. But, to "prove" that your component failure is linked to the electrical event, is almost impossible without physical damage visible. Burn marks, etc.

 

[thx1138v2]

I suppose it's possible that your video card could be affected if the PSU was plugged into a UPS/surge suppressor and your monitor was not. The UPS/surge suppressor or circuitry within the PSU could have protected the PSU but the surge could have gone to the monitor via the power cord if it wasn't protected and from there through the cable to the video card. If the monitor worked afterwards, however, that wasn't the case.

I had a strike across the street that spread out across the wet ground and got into my DSL line and fried the phones, modem, router, Cat5 connected ethernet network card, and motherboard and nothing else.

As for proof, I think photos of blown circuity would probably be the only thing that might suffice.

 

[Follmann]

Since you have multiple items which were damaged at the same time, that is pretty good evidence you had an event. But, to "prove" that your component failure is linked to the electrical event, is almost impossible without physical damage visible. Burn marks, etc.

Thanks for the response. The thing is, the process to get a reimbursement is pretty much designed to be a pain, so much so that most people don't even try it. I probably wouldn't as well, were not for the fact that I had upgraded my build only two weeks prior to the incident, after a couple years of savings. The damaged items are analyzed independently.
What I'm looking for is not so much definitive evidence but just a rebuttal to the argument that such event would neccessarily cause a damaged power source in addition to my VGA (which indeed doesn't present any overt physical damage).

I suppose it's possible that your video card could be affected if the PSU was plugged into a UPS/surge suppressor and your monitor was not. The UPS/surge suppressor or circuitry within the PSU could have protected the PSU but the surge could have gone to the monitor via the power cord if it wasn't protected and from there through the cable to the video card. If the monitor worked afterwards, however, that wasn't the case.

I had a strike across the street that spread out across the wet ground and got into my DSL line and fried the phones, modem, router, Cat5 connected ethernet network card, and motherboard and nothing else.

As for proof, I think photos of blown circuity would probably be the only thing that might suffice.

Thank you as well. My monitor seems to be perfectly fine as well, and was connected to the same appliance as the PSU.