To my knowledge the 'ADSL lightning protector' is just a normal telephone lightning protector. ADSL is nothing special except for the two filters on either side (that is the little box you call a modem and the thing they install in the Telkom substation). ADSL still runs on 4 copper wires, just like a normal telephone line and the lightning protector isolates those lines from power spikes.
rainynight65 said:
Everybody I know tells me that lightning surge protectors hardly ever work. The voltages in a lightning bolt are far too unpredictable for anything to work properly. I don't have one, I rather disconnect my router when a storm is around.
The name 'lightning protector' is a bit of a misnomer. If lightning actualy hits the telephone line, nothing is going to stop it, short of a physical disconnect.
(and frankly, if lightning strikes the cable leading to your house, you gonna lose a lot more than just your computer. Even if your computer is unplugged, you gonna lose it to fire, cuase your house is gonna burn down...)
What a 'lightning protector' do is to protect you from the electronic spikes caused by lightning (and other sources) that might cause harm to your system.
If a lightning strike hits close to your house or close to the wires serving your neighbourhood, it causes an electromagnetic effect. This causes a spike on your mains power and/or telephone line. Depending on the quality of your Eskom/Telkom installation, these should be filtered out before it reaches your house. However, with time (and after saving your but a few hundred times) these filters decrade and the spikes starts coming through. The next line of defence (if you do not have a lightning protector) is your modem or your power supply and these are not 'protecting devices' so it can go through to your motherboard etc...
These spikes happen even without lightning (your nextdoor neighbour using a power tool or even your own fridge, will cause spikes) and although one will not kill your PC, the circuits degrade and eventualy it will happen.
The best thing to do is get a lightning protector that combines the mainspower and telephone. (About R100 at most electric retail stores) Get one that plugs directly into a wall socket with an out plug for power and an 'in' and 'out' plug for the telephone/adsl line. Put all your computer equipment on this plug, including printers, screens, modems, switch/hub's. (Remember, if you do not isolate for example your printer, a spike can hit it, go through your printer cable and still hit the PC). This will protect you during normal operation. It should also work for most lightning storms, however if there is lightning and you do not need to have the PC on, unplug it from the wallsocket/telephone line (Actualy remove the plug from the wall socket!) Also if you go to sleep or away for the weekend or on holiday unplug the whole system. This is also good for other electronic devices such as TV's radios and even microwave ovens.
Also, eliminate long wires in your system (like long LAN cables connecting remote PC's) At one of our installations we had a LAN cable about 15m long that connected two sub-nets. On three seperate occasions there were a lightning strike to a lightning rod about 100m away from the installation. The 15m LAN cable picked up the electromagnetic wave and caused a spike, blowing a port on each of the hubs connected to the cable, even when the whole network was completely unpugged from the mains/adsl (lucikly the rest of the system was not affected). We replaced the cable with a wireless connnection about 2 months ago and since have not had a problem.
Remember, it is seldom a single 'hit' that blows a system, but rather a series of 'hits' over a period of time that weakens the protective measures and then one that finally gets through...
