RIP - Farewell to an old friend

[Martin963]

..... my old Club-Internet ADSL modem.    A storm came from nowhere last night,  a flash,  five seconds pause,  a roll of thunder,   and when I went back into the room with the computer the Club Internet box was completely and utterly dead.

Why the post?   Don't know really,   we moved to Alice after a year with Club Internet,  the box was taken back to England where it refused to work as an ordinary non-VOIP modem,   filed away,  moved back to France,   and gained a new lease of life (to my great surprsie) when it agreed to work on Orange Decouvert.   And very stably too - we're a long way from the exchange.   And I had that little tremor of satisfaction (that perhaps some of you also get?) to press an old bit of kit back into use.

Luckily the Netgear 834PN is available and back in service,  and another Netgear is now on order,  but the other reason for posting is that the phone and power supplies were routed via a so-called protector,   which proved less than useless.   (I'm assuming the bolt (or surge more properly) came via the phone line).    Nothing else damaged including all the unprotected cordless phones.    Is there really no reasonably-priced method of keeping phone lines protected?

However,   I'm counting my blessings as a lot of plumbing round these parts failed during the cold weather,   but ours (drained down carefully when we left in November) survived,   as did the anti-freeze-filled radiator system (which wasn't on).     We could have been faced with a big bill and no water when we arrived,  and I give a great deal of thanks that we weren't.

[cooperlola]

Does your so-called surge protector come with a so-called guarantee?  I've never tried to claim through one of these things but those I own say that if they fail you can claim.

Sorry for your loss (as the Americans say.) [:)]

[pachapapa]

I always unplug the telephone connexion cable from the AliceBox if thundery conditions are forecast or occur.

Once bitten, twice shy.

[Martin963]

I think it does coops but I doubt I'd get anywhere.   I'll trawl through my documentation though,  thanks for the reminder.

ppp - so do we - you're absolutely right,  but this one came up from nowhere.   Yes the odd storm had been forecast but we'd been keeping an eye out all day through the showers for anything that might be worse,   and by the time this happened in the early evening it looked to be clearing up a bit.  

C'est la vie.....

[Jako]

5 years ago I installed this Belkin gold series surgemaster which is advertised for an 'extreme protection level' and 'unlimited' warranty. The first thunderstorm came only two weeks later and destroyed the surgemaster, adsl modem and adsl filter->completely useless [:@]. There is only one protection: disconnect your equipment.

[cooperlola]

So when Belkin rejected your claim, Jako, what excuse did they give for not coughing up?

[powerdesal]

The wrong sort of Lightening ???????