Netgear issues: wireless works fine, but wired is broken

[orrymr]

Hi guys,
So last night during the thunderstorm I turned off my one pc, alas I forgot to turn off the one in my bedroom. It is connected via ethernet to a netgear router. The router was also connected to the phone line at the time when lightning hit my house. All the power went out. When I turned it back on, luckily my PC was still fine. However, I couldn't connect to my router. Strangely enough though, my wifi seemed to be working fine. When I tried to go to 192.168.0.1 (my router) from my iPad I could connect, however I couldn't connect from my desktop. None of the wired networking on my router works; from any port to any PC. Only the wireless is working fine. In fact, I took my old wireless adapter and put it in my pc and the thing works fine.

Any ideas on what I can do here? I only just thought of this now, but is it possible that both the ethernet cables connecting the 2 pcs to the router got fried (this seems unlikely)? Or is it possible that only the wired section of the router got toasted?

 

[yeti]

Its all too likely the surge fried the actual ethernet port on the netgear router. An easy way to identify if its your PC or the router is to watch the ethernet port on your PC when she boots; if it flashes several times during post, it should be fine (can't say the same for the router unfortunately).

Did someone say RMA?

 

[orrymr]

Well, I just restarted. The light is now glowing orange instead of green. While it was rebooting, it stayed orange (never flashed) :/

 

[RoganDawes]

Odds are fair that the ethernet port on the router is fried. You could try connecting a different device that was not connected at the time of the lightning strike to that same port to check where the culprit is - it could actually be the ethernet port on your desktop that has gone.

So e.g. plug in a laptop to the wired router, and see if you get a connection. Also try changing ports on the router. I had a strike that took out the middle two ports on the router, but left 1 and 4 intact. Regardless, you are probably going to want to replace the router. Once it has been struck by lightning, things tend to go a bit flaky!

 

[orrymr]

Looks like ports 1 and 2 are fried, 3 and 4 work fine. Looks like the onboard network adapter of one of my pcs is fried as well. Thanks for all the help; I think I'll just buy a network adapter and all should be well. Unless there's a problem with the fact that an onboard component of the Motherboard is fried?