friend's computer damaged by lightening

[seablue]

My friend's internet service was out all week. She has the same ISP as me - a local satellite company. They came out and found that it wasn't their equipment. We had a bad storm one day last week with BAD lightening. Apparently, lightening had blown out her internal ethernet port. She's not using a mac -- she has a PC. She also has an external ethernet port so she is using that now and everything is fine.
My question is... would an APS battery backup have saved that from happening??

 

[MarkMS]

Yeah, an APC UPS (uninterruptible power supply) could have saved that from happening because those UPS' have surge protection. Most include RJ-45 Modem/Fax/DSL/10-100 Base-T protection for data lines.

The main difference between these Battery backups and a regular surge protector is that the battery back up has about 5 - 10 minutes of juice so that you could save whatever you were doing and shut down the computer properly.

At the same time, a regular surge protector with coax and RJ-45 (ethernet) connections would have given the same protection. It just wouldn't give you the 5 - 10 minutes to save up and shutdown your computer.

UPDATE:

As stated below, it also depends on the strike and how close/intense it was. Best is to unplug everything, but a surge protector is also recommended instead of just plugging everything through the wall socket.

 

[miloblithe]

Well, just be glad it was only lightening and her computer wasn't damaged by lightning.

 

[Macky-Mac]

have a friend who had a similar experience; I think it would all depend on the intensity of the lightning strike. They had an APC UPS on their system but the surge blew right through it and destroyed a computer, a monitor, and a fax machine

 

[heatmiser]

A UPS might have helped, but it might not have. In the end, it really depends on how direct the strike is. Best protection's to unplug everything.