(e-mail address removed) pravi:
Most surge protections will do nothing at a direct lightning strike, if
you want protection from that, install a FID fuse along with your surge
protection. Also, no surge protection will work right unless it's
properly grounded. And by "well" I mean something that eats lightning.
Make sure the ground in your power outlet is actually connected to some
grounding. Grounding onto something big and metallic that doesn't end in
the ground like real grounding should, won't help you.
All cables going into the computer should be properly protected at some
point, this included the already mentioned telephone cables, network
cables, cable or antenna TV plug for TV cards and power lines. Power
lines of all hardware connected should also be protected (try to the
very same surge protection, otherwise things might still get sparky).
Keep the wires between your surge protection and your computers short
(e.g. not wound up under the table in 10 meters of excess cabling), as
lightning has a nifty tendency to sneak into those, particularly if the
cable forms a spiral shape.
As for the computer, my usual experience with lightning is that it takes
out the motherboard. If you wish, you can try stripping your computer
down completely (you end up with the following connected only: CPU +
motherboard + PSU + internal beeper + keyboard), then listen for beeps.
If you got one beep, you're good, if you get silence, you're screwed.
If screwed, replace the PSU or motherboard, starting with the most
likely until you get it to beep.
If you hear a repetitive low beeping, your RAM is screwed. If you hear
nothing but a single high-pitched beep, your CPU is dead.
If RAM or CPU is screwed, do try reseating it first!
If good, you'll hear a wild series of beeping, attach a graphic card,
then you should get a single beep (maybe two, but certainly not many).
If you still got a series of beeps, reseat the graphic card. If you
still got a series of beeps, replace graphic card.
Once at single beep with graphic card, insert other PCI boards. If a PCI
board is fried, the computer won't boot at all. That's how you can tell
which is burnt and which is okay. Usually, however, a PCI board fries
together with it's slot... when a bad PCI board is in a bad slot, the
computer will boot, but the card will not be detected nor functional.
As for the diagnostic of the peripherals such as floppy, CD/DVD and disk
drives, the diagnostics should be performed automatically by the BIOS
boot program (also known as POST: Power-on Self Test), if anything is
wrong with the onboard electronics or otherwise, POST will let you know
and tell you all about it on screen.
Good luck!