Thought I'd try here first before the geeks. I had lightening strike. Computer wouldn't come on so I replaced the power supply. Got the green light on the motherboard and all the fans start turning as soon as the button is pushed, but it won't boot to the hard drive and there are no beep codes at all. Nothing. Do you think it may be my motherboard or processor that got fried along with the power supply?

Thought I'd try here first before the geeks. I had lightening strike. Computer wouldn't come on so I replaced the power supply. Got the green light on the motherboard and all the fans start turning as soon as the button is pushed, but it won't boot to the hard drive and there are no beep codes at all. Nothing. Do you think it may be my motherboard or processor that got fried along with the power supply?

Find a trusted seller on Ebay offering flat-rate motherboard repair for your model.  Basically they do a board swap and send your defective motherboard upstream to someone who has the specialized equipment and knowledge to repair it.

This unit is about 5 years old. I have dual BFG graphics cards. Wouldn't I have to find a mother board that is compatible? I'm thinking I do but please refresh my memory.

Silicon is highly susceptible to any over voltage condition. And of course silicon is everywhere in a computer, motherboard, RAM, hard drives, video card etc. Overvoltage protectors and spark arrestors just don't work fast enough to overcome the intensity of a lightning strike. In my past life I worked in an area of high voltage power supplies and it didn't matter how we protected. Sparks often led to dead electronics. These sparks would max at 300kV, small by lighting comparison. Sorry to hear about it, maybe your house insurance will cover it.

This is not going to help you now, but I hope the next thing you buy is a battery back-up with surge protector!!! I would have lost some if not all computers many times already here in South Florida. This surge protector could really save you a lot of money!

Surge protectors and battery back-ups protect up to a certain number of joules...in the case of a lightning strike, I doubt there will be a reasonably priced battery back-up that would help. When there are lightning storms around my house, I shut down and uplug even the UPS system I have from the wall, because even though your computer is off, lightning will still travel through the wiring, out the plugs and into your computer unless you break the connection (unplugging).

Those piddly little "surge protectors" at Best Buy are just high-margin junk they'd like to sell you when you've just bought a new PC.   You could connect 10 of them in a row and they wouldn't stand up to a nearby lightning strike.  

In the 80s I was an engineer for a company that made phone modems.  They had built-in MOV surge protectors but being connected to the phone line, were frequently taken out by lightning, which blew through the MOV like a rifle shot through glass, and fried the entire electronics.

It's like Seinfeld's routine about parachutists.  He asks "why are they wearing helmets?"   "If that chute doesn't open, and you hit the ground, baby - that helmet is wearing YOU".  

Quote from: donding on June 21, 2010, 13:24

Thought I'd try here first before the geeks. I had lightening strike. Computer wouldn't come on so I replaced the power supply. Got the green light on the motherboard and all the fans start turning as soon as the button is pushed, but it won't boot to the hard drive and there are no beep codes at all. Nothing. Do you think it may be my motherboard or processor that got fried along with the power supply?

I'd just look at cost of new board and cpu (or just buy a whole new pc) rather than fix a 5 year old board (or replace a board with same cpu) - it would be worth spending a hour or so exploring options. 
I'd look into how fast the video cards are by todays standards too, they may be they are worth keeping but tech moves on and the top stuff gets surpassed. (I have a dual pentium 4 machine that cost us over $10k (video card in it was $2k) when work bought it about 5-6 yrs ago. It doesnt even get turned on now, the $2500 dell i7 with $500 quadro card I bought early in the year leaves it for dead in every regard).

I know what you are saying. It would make more sense to rebuild with new motherboard, cpu and ram rather than trying to just replace the cpu. I know it would be much cheaper to do it myself than to go out and buy a new computer and wonder if it has quality components in it. At least if I rebuild I can go for faster cpu and more ram for better performance for a whole lot less money.

I agree with Zues If you can do it your self Newegg & Tigerdirect are good places to buy from.

I agree with Zues If you can do it your self Newegg & Tigerdirect are good places to buy from.

I've been visiting Tigerdirect. They have good prices. I can get an Asus motherboard and AMD processor and good size ram for less than $400.00. Asus and AMD are in the computer now and they have been good so I'd rather stick with what I know and I know are dependable. My duel graphics cards will work with the newer motherboard because they are PCi express cards. At least one good thing is I can make a little money with the old motherboard by selling photos for stock.

Thanks to you all for lending me your knowledge.