It can really screw with electronics. We had a wild lightning storm last night and it hit really close, I was downstairs when it happened. Circuit breaker kicked in and saved the entertainment center (although I have a diesel surge protector back there too). Came upstairs and my computer was off. Turned it back on and it says a network plus wasn’t connected. So after some trouble shooting I figured that my onboard LAN connection ate it. I really have no idea how it happened, the surge or whatever must have come through the cable, through the router and then zapped that one component. A $22 dollar dent as I picked up a 10/100 ethernet card from a local computer place. Got lucky really, a lot more damage could have happened.

I’m happy that I figured out the problem and fixed it in about 5 minutes too. Even took the opportunity to clean out the inside of my computer a bit.