Zen Internet Support Forum

On 28th April my router received a direct hit by an electric storm and was more or less incinerated.

I got another router but I was unable to connect to the internet and with the help of support was visited three times by BT.

I was told on the second visit that I was too far from the exchange and broadband could not be supplied, despite the fact that I had had it for two and a half years albeit at the low end speedwise.

Zen support refused to accept all the engineers reports and insisted that further investigation was appropriate. After two weeks without the internet BT decided to connect me to another cable and on 13th May I was back on broadband with a line that can now possibly support 1.5mbs.

Three cheers for support.

John
 

Hi John

Glad to hear that you have finally started to get a broadband service that is working for you.  We will always try and fight our customers corner with suppliers and push as hard as we can to ensure they get service unless it's clear that it's not going to happen and in some cases that's sadly inevitable, but thankfully not too common.  Your issue highlights that it's never a given that just because an engineers report suggests you won't get a service that you literally wont :-)

I have seen on many occasions customers in a similar dilemma when I worked as a contractor in the BT BOU and I have to say we used to push internally then to get the customers up and running.

Please let support know if you get any further problems.

Regards

Gary

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"The Internet is a global collection of single points of failure"

Nice to have good news now and then.

Well done Zen, I bet if he had been with one of the cheaper ISP's he would still be waiting to be connected if he ever was.

On a side note, I disconnect my router from the phone line when thunder storms are near.  I do have a device to prevent spikes but can't say I trust it 100% so does anyone have any advice on protecting against storm damage.

I do unplug everything and had to do it quite a few times recently.

I had thought about connecting a largish earth wire to the PC's (6mm)

 

Hello BritBat,

YES! I have some experience with electrical storm related situations.

No.1 Surge Protection is it a myth or worth having? my surge & spike strip which worked perfectly recently when our mains electrical supply spiked & browned out. We had x3 short outages on the same night and each time my workstation just rebooted. Everything was both protected and 100% no damage was done and no data lost. So YES! surge & spike protection does work & is definitely worth the money to have. YES! does protect you from a dirty mains supply but thats all.

No.2 If lightening strikes your phone line there is almost nothing that you can do in a normal domestic situation to prevent electrical damage. Lightening strikes can be so fast (nano seconds) and the power of a strike can be so high that almost nothing can prevent damage. I've seen a PC that was hit by lightening via a phone line and the MB looked perfect but was just dead. It was fried not a single component was left working. My friend who this happened to lives in Goole where they seem to get a lot of thunder storms & have poor mains supply, his machine was replaced under his house insurance.

No.3 My workstation sits on top of an old rubber car mat to give a little extra insulation against lower level electrical attacks. I guess you could sit your router on a small rubber mat, theres no harm and it could be an advantage?  

No.4 Connecting an earth wire to the PC is a bit of a waste of time, thats too small scale. The house itself should have an earthing wire (cable) attached on the outside of the physical building. Remember lightening will always take the shortest path to ground.

No.5 YES! physically disconnecting IT equipment is preferable if you have the time & awareness to do so. Thats the best protection of all I would have to agree.

Ivan. 

I'd have to disagree, normal surge/spike strips wont do *** and didnt for me, it ruined multiple things on one of my rigs a few years back, and I didnt even think it was an electricity problem til I had basically replaced everything in the rig atleast once and was still getting pissed off by things dieing.  By the time a surge hits the strip and the strip recognises it and shuts down, invariably its too late and whatever is connected to the strip is already dead. UPS is the only way to go , and a line active one at that.

Nowadays I dont run any pc or xbox or ps3 without a UPS connected to them and since then I have had 0 problems, so I would recommend a UPS to everyone, but I wouldnt recommend surge/spike strips as they are basically useless.

If their is thunder and lightning in my area, usually I disconnect everything from the mains, pc wise that is, and also take the phone line out of the router, as thats one of the main targets and if that gets hit, it will go into the router and from there to the pc via ethernet, so I try and cut out those sources of trouble when thunder and lightning is around which thankfully is only about once/twice a year.

Prudential came through for me with the pc that got fried, I ended up getting a whole new rig because they classed it as an electricity problem, which for me was a bonus as I thought I was gunna have to replace the rig out of my own pocket,. 

Hello,

Sorry! to hear of your experience but if anything it just goes to prove that different people have different experiences. My experiences with the surge & spike strip relates only to the main supply and NOT to a lightening strike. I'm sure you are correct that if hit by lightening then a surge & spike strip would give zero protection. Thats doesn't invalidate such protection strips in my opinion. My recent experience was a positive one and possibly it also depends on the quality of the spike strip too?

**YES! UPS are good and worth while I totally agree. And I guess the more money you (we) have invested in our computer & IT set-up's the more relevant it is to protect it with a UPS.

Ivan. 

My experience also relates to the main's supply, it took me months to finally nail it down as nothing showed that it was a mains problem, the amount of hardware I went through was unbelieveable, but in the end it was finally nailed down to a loose wire inside the wall socket that was causing surges every now and then.  I am just glad that the Pru saw it as an electricity supply problem, because if they didnt then I would of had to dump the rig and buy a new one myself.

All it has done to me is made me double and triple check my expensive hardware items are connected correctly and hooked upto a UPS, and also at the first sign of thunder/lightning I take it seriously now when I didnt before, even though I havent been hit ( touch wood )  I now take it seriously due to the fact that I wasted a pile of cash trying to replace parts on that dodgy rig before I found out it was the wall socket.

We live and learn... 

Ahh!! Yes! being wise after the event is a marvelous thing I totally agree !!

**You have made me think again about having a UPS I must admit, as I run my workstation 24/7 more like a server than a conventional PC.

**Having said that I live in an inner city area and there are plenty of buildings & metal objects for lightening to strike but fortunately so far I've never had a problem but there again lightening is a pretty random thing. So you can never ever think you are safe. I may well take more care in future in thunder storm conditions after hearing your story! 

Ivan.