Thunder, Lightning and …
Posted on: June 19, 2008
On Tuesday morning June 3rd lightning struck and damaged my modem, TFT and brandnew (March 2008) PC.
Specs:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
3GB RAM Crucial DDR2 800Mhz
VGA (Point) Nvidea GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB
Recom Power Engine 450 ATX
Asus P5K motherboard
Samsung F1 750GB 32MB SATAII
Samsung DVD-RW 20x
Internal cardreader 3,5 inch
(OS: Vista Home Premium NL)
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 931 BW
Of the above only the computer casing, processor, VGA and the cardreader survived. Lucky it didn’t directly hit at our house but at my backdoor neighbours (only backyard inbetween so 10-15 meters away max.), so I got off with only these damages where they had fire coming out of the wall sockets! They have loads more damage, no person or animal got hurt in the incident *phew*. Also it’s a good thing we got insurance but still….
When it happened I was quite shaken/stunned wondering "now what?" I had no means of communications besides my mobile phone. Fist to call is my bf at work, he came home. Next was to bring my computer to the store to be checked out, we have one really nearby but it isn’t open till afternoon…. So what next, call insurance agency! As what they need from me, they need expert damage report from computer store. Once I have that I can call back and he’d fill in a damage form and sent that off with the damage report and copies of my original invoices. Next was to send txt messages to some friends so they’d know what happened to me and not worry about me not being online…
Things never go as fast as you want/wish for and in my case…repairs are taking much longer than needed. My modem is hired so I got a new one from my ISP within a week, no problem there. Computer is another story, it was to be ready yesterday but when I arrived at the store I was told there had been a delay in delivery for some parts, those got delivered just the day before so I got a promise they start workin on my comp that afternoon. Delay in delivery, yea right…I know for a fact they didn’t even order the parts till last Friday (been in and out of the store several times to either talk stuff over or bring stuff in) whilst they knew what was needed since the Saturday before already! At 5:30 PM I get a phonecall, they need my VGA Card driver CD. No problem, I bring it over right away, the store is just across the street anyway. I saw my computer being worked on but to my surprise they had put Vista Home Premium NL back on instead of Vista Ultimate EN 32-bits that I gave them to install.
Ultimate you say? Yes, I got Vista Ultimate SP1 English 32 bits (promo cd) from Kip (LiveSide). I was over the moon (and of course thanked Kip many many times) when he sent me that as now I had an English OS, meaning no more being last in line when there’s a new SP and even more important: the ability to test software that will work on English OS only! As you all know, beta testing is a large part of my existence. I got promised they will put Vista Ultimate back on as it is a genuine version, I also reminded them that if they’d put back Home Premium I’d have to do an install all over again as you can’t upgrade when the languages differ. So what went wrong there? They told me my Vista Ultimate CD was so damaged it wouldn’t install! Well I delivered it in perfect condition, I installed from it only once and it went fine then! So if it’s damaged then it happened whilst it was in their possession! Knowing my DVD drive was to be replaced to I asked if that had been done as otherwise it might be my DVD drive (reading errors) instead of the CD at fault. It had not been replaced, but they been installing from other CDs and that went OK 
The CD was in possession of the boss and not there at that time so couldn’t check..they’ll look at it again.
I also reminded to put back the backup they made of my hd and to my surprise the one working on my PC knew of no such! Turns out the guy who made the backup was a student who no longer works there. Great communications eh, what ever happened to using a piece of paper on which one puts date system brought in, what’s wrong and what needs be done? I would have done that if I were them and have the person workin on that system write down with date what has been done to it already, so that incase anybody else needs to take over there can be no misunderstandings…wanna borough my organisation skills?
So you can understand I’m quite frustrated/angry/stressed out at the moment. I surely hope my PC is ready this evening when I go back there and that they didn’t damage my Vista Ultimate CD…
At least I can be online for lil bits on my old comp which I modified (save disk space) and moved upstairs when I got my new one, so that’s better than nothing. Insurance stuff is out of the way now too. I gotta hold on for a lil bit longer….
It is not at all in my nature to complain or rant esp. not in public but well this just got a wee bit…I just had to get it out of my system…
3 Responses to "Thunder, Lightning and …"
June 22, 2008 at 6:37 am
Yes I was missing & wondering what happened. I had checked your other blog
to find out but that was giving some error. Its very sad to know about your
PC. Lucky no person got hurt.I always switch off my PC during major
thunder/lightning as one of my cousins PC was also damaged similarly. In the
UPS there might be some lightning & surge protection, can\’t say how
effective it will be but you can also use that. But best thing is to switch
off during major thunderstorms.I thought the repair/service is bad here
but it\’s the same there also. Why did you provide them with Vista Original
DVD ? I just hate such service people. I think Seagate drives are better but
look for higher speeds. Both have now 5yrs warranty. Also get your CPU and
motherboard thoroughly checked.
June 22, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Steve, yea with Vista Ultimate one can change language simply by installing a language pack. However Vista Home Premium has no such feature and to upgrade both versions will need to be in the same language, you get prompted to do a fresh install if not.
Vas, the thunderstorm wasn\’t that bad till then, it was only rumbling a bit so yea totally unexpected. It came inhere through the telephoneline most likely as the security switch (where power comes into the house) hadn\’t turned off..that turned off with the next one. I had to provide the original DVD as they will not install an OS if you were to deliver a copy (the only alternative to that was to have it back with Home Premium Dutch back on and having to do a fresh install again myself….right now I wish I had chosen that). Everything was checked thoroughly, my CPU was fine but my motherboard broke, they\’ve put in an exact same one new. I also bought me a good surge protector now, wich also has a filter on the telephone line, so I should be a bit safer in future. Nevertheless it gave me quite a scare and I\’ll surely turn off my computer sooner now when there\’s a thunderstorm.
Comments are closed.
Sunshine's Web 
June 19, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Sorry to read that your woes continue on the fired computer. As long as you have the Vista Key from the package, any edition of Vista 32 bit can be installed from any Vista install DVD. You\’ll need to feed the correct key for that edition, though, to activate. As for NL vs. English, with Ultimate, you can install any and all of language packs that allow you to change the OS system language and also change, I think. However, I do think you\’re on to something regarding the defective drive that they should have replaced before installing any OS or software to the PC.