Question Power went out from storm. How to tell if pc is damaged?

[ethan.crabtree45648]

So my pc was plugged in when it got windy here and the power went off and came back on before i could get to it. If it turns on and seems to be ok is it good? Can damage be more subtle? I have a surge protector that im using with it but i heard those can fail sometimes.

I have anxiety and i dont want to spend the next week faking myself out, thinking i see something wrong with it when its nothing (fps slightly lower, slightly longer boot times, slight stuttering, ect)

 

[hotaru.hino]

Unless your circuit was hit with a lightning strike, the worst that could happen is any data you didn't save to a drive got lost.

This scenario isn't much different than if you hit the surge protector switch off by accident.

 

[ethan.crabtree45648]

Unless your circuit was hit with a lightning strike, the worst that could happen is any data you didn't save to a drive got lost.

This scenario isn't much different than if you hit the surge protector switch off by accident.

arent there surges when electricity is initally restored? I thought ive heard those can do damage.

Idk what to look for in terms of signs of damage either.

 

[Eximo]

Not really any particular test for the PC other than giving it a try.

If your surge suppressor has a test mode or an indicator light that it is still working then you are good there. Otherwise time for a new one.

There can be power sags and surges when mains power comes back on line or goes out due to physical storm damage or lightning strikes to the grid. Even nearby lightning can induce a current in household and utility wiring. Computer PSUs are actually pretty decent at absorbing this kind of stuff. They have MOVs and bulk capacitors that can keep most junk away from your internal components.

The surge suppressor's job is to prevent any high voltage surges.

 

[ethan.crabtree45648]

Not really any particular test.

If your surge suppressor has a test mode or an indicator light that it is still working then you are good there. Otherwise time for a new one.

There can be power sags and surges when mains power comes back on line or goes out due to physical storm damage or lightning strikes to the grid. Even nearby lightning can induce a current in household and utility wiring. Computer PSUs are actually pretty decent at absorbing this kind of stuff. They have MOVs and bulk capacitors that can keep most junk away from your internal components.

The surge suppressor's job is to prevent any high voltage surges.

will it be obvious if something is wrong with it if it underwent electrical damage? Will it refuse to turn on or be borderline unusable?

 

[Zerk2012]

will it be obvious if something is wrong with it if it underwent electrical damage? Will it refuse to turn on or be borderline unusable?

If it's working stop stressing it!

 

[Eximo]

Computers are generally either working or not working. When they aren't working correctly but well enough to have an OS running it is generally a software issue. Occasionally memory issues can cause a system to misbehave, either system or GPU memory. That would be in the form of crashing or visual garbage on the screen.

Individual components can fail. Network adapters can get shocked through their wires. Telephone modems of yesteryear were also a common damage point. Often meant replacing the modem or NIC (which is why surge suppressors often come with telephone and ethernet jacks)

I've seen hard drive, tape drive, and floppy drive failure after a storm, but all main system components survived. Just depends on what level of protection each piece of hardware has.

 

[Ralston18]

Yes surge protectors can and do fail. Plus they are rated as to how much energy they can absorb (Joules) before becoming ineffective - meaning no more protection.

= = = =

And another thing you can do is to just start watching Reliability History/Monitor.

Very end user friendly and the timeline format may reveal patterns.

Simply watch for any error codes, warnings, or informational events that may start appearing. Especially any that do not or have not presented before. May provide a bit of an early warning. Emphasis on "May".

There wil always be entries including some that will be resolved by the system. All systems will have and record such errors.

= = = =

Also: be sure to backup all important data at least 2 x to locations away from the pc. Ensure that the backups are recoverable and readable.

Which you should already be doing anyway.....

 

[Eximo]

If you really want to protect your PC, get a pure sine wave UPS that is roughly 50% higher power than your expected full draw. (So like 150W CPU + 250W GPU 400W, get at least a 600VA UPS.

 

[hotaru.hino]

If there was any issues from the mains damaging the computer, the issues would show up pretty much immediately. If it happens over time, then it becomes harder to say what was causing the problem. It could just be the hardware is a bum unit, software is misbehaving, or you touched it in a way that gave off an unnoticeable static discharge.

If the computer appears to work fine now, then don't worry about it. But if you're worried about the data on the computer, then you should have contingency plans for that.

 

[artk2219]

You're likely fine, damage like that is very quickly noticed. The worst one I've seen recently was from someone that had their computer fried from their cable modem. Lightning hit right where the cable came in, fried the modem, fried the router, fried the ethernet port, m.2 ssd, and one of the memory channels on the memory controller on the cpu, surprisingly the PSU was just fine. Thankfully everything except the CPU was under warranty, so they were replaced, and the user upgraded from a Ryzen 5 3600 to a 5600X. I still have the Ryzen 5 3600, it makes a perfectly acceptable test cpu for motherboards. I cant test dual channel memory, but i can see if a board will post and use it for BIOS upgrades so its not a total waste.

 

[Cellie]

Echoing the sentiment that you PC is likely fine.

I've only got anecdotal data to share but summer storms can be severe here, plenty lightning, power going out, the whole thing. I never ever had a computer damaged merely by the power going out (and I unplug everything when lightning is getting too close). Like the poster above I also had a very close lighting strike. It traveled through the ethernet cables frying every network board in the way and slightly messing up my GPU — it still worked but became very sensitive to dust.

The damage to the affected hardware was immediately evident, not physically, but the boards wouldn't be detected, and my video glitched. No stealth damage after the fact, and that's from an actual power surge. Here at least surges from just restoring the power aren't common at all.