Macbook Pro Dead After Lightning Strike!

Says it all really! I had my laptop charging and connected to the Internet via ethernet cable when I was out of the house, there was a huge storm and lightning strike very close to my house. When I returned, I noticed black charring around the wall power socket and the laptop was off. It will not switch on. I flipped it over and pressed the battery indicator button and got four lights - so the battery seems to be ok...?

I took the laptop apart and looked for any signs of damage inside. I am not an expert by any means, but there was nothing obvious - no black marks or charring, nothing melted, etc.

Put it back together and still not switching on. I took battery out, pressed power button for 7 secs to reset the SMU, nothing. Press and hold power key, nothing. The power socket on the wall is still working, but my power supply light is not coming on.

2 of my neighbours had the same problem, and our shared router plain exploded in a black mess, so it looks like the power surge came from my ethernet connection, possibly thru my laptop and my power cable before going bang when it reached the wall socket.

Does anybody know what might be the damage inside? After looking at the net, it seems to be a motherboard issue. Is this user replaceable? Thing Is I am in a small town in Thailand and the resources here are worse than useless.

Any help or advice here would be fantastic, thank you!

17" MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on May 4, 2009 11:03 PM

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3 replies

May 5, 2009 12:22 PM in response to pstretton

Unfortunately, if it is lightning related, just about anything can be fried. The charge from even being in close proximity to a lightning strike can be enough to damage components in a computer. If you had a direct hit through your ethernet cable, the charge could easily have jumped to multiple components. It's generally a good idea to use an uninterruptable power supply with a built in filter... or a surge suppressor in the very least. Even these won't help if you get a direct hit, but they will protect you from more minor indirect surges. In your case, it can be as simple as a single chip being damaged or multiple ones. There really is no way of knowing without diagnosing each individual component. For starters, you would probably want to go with the logic board. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that will take care of your problem. Your display can be damaged, your hard drive can be damaged... just about anything.

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Macbook Pro Dead After Lightning Strike!

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