Storms And Computers

[Shoeboat]

I spend a lot of time on my laptop at home, especially when it's raining which it looks like it will be soon. I don't live in a high rise apartment block, but in one of a bunch of 15 floor blocks. How high is the risk of my laptop being affected by lightning?

I can't run it off the battery as the battery life is laughably short, and being an Apple the power adapter has a big white block on it which I am guessing regulates the charge which may differ from country to country.

[Drewcifer]

I spend a lot of time on my laptop at home, especially when it's raining which it looks like it will be soon. I don't live in a high rise apartment block, but in one of a bunch of 15 floor blocks. How high is the risk of my laptop being affected by lightning?

I can't run it off the battery as the battery life is laughably short, and being an Apple the power adapter has a big white block on it which I am guessing regulates the charge which may differ from country to country.

A few things caught my attention here. An apple shouldn't have a laughably short battery life. Have you been maintaining your battery health? Is it just time for a new battery?

As far as isolation goes, in addition to your apple power supply, you should invest in a high quality surge suppressor. I wouldn't trust the buildings electrical system or the apple transformer to smooth out the erratic spikes that can happen.

[Shoeboat]

It's two years old and recently an Apple rep informed me I could have it replaced for free as I may have had one from a dodgy batch - as you rightly said, 'An apple shouldn't have a laughably short battery life.'

you should invest in a high quality surge suppressor.

That's good advice... Phantip should have one, though I have no idea how to explain it in Thai!

[klikster]

Many moons ago in Chiang Rai, a nearby lightning strike fried an xjack PCMCIA modem in my Toshiba Notebook. I was working on the 'puter at the time and a "spark" jumped from the telephone connection to my hand. No injury .. but pretty thought provoking.

[Khun Jack]

I spend a lot of time on my laptop at home, especially when it's raining which it looks like it will be soon. I don't live in a high rise apartment block, but in one of a bunch of 15 floor blocks. How high is the risk of my laptop being affected by lightning?

I can't run it off the battery as the battery life is laughably short, and being an Apple the power adapter has a big white block on it which I am guessing regulates the charge which may differ from country to country.

Last Wednesday in Patong Phuket experienced my first lightning strike. Started to pull computer cables out when the thunder came so close - stupid yes - before I finished that, lightning hit the telephone line - blew the PBX in the room were I was working and the adsl router - computer and a UPS and I had some pain in my hand...

That was at work, no grounding there and no line protection but that will change now quickly, in my home I have a line protector with a deep grounding pole, and without proper grounding a line protector is useless.