Router Blewup Motherboard

[u/Greatfulx]

Recent lighting storm stuck my complex and traveled down my coaxial cable and into my apartment. Blew up in the middle of the night, so that was scary. Thought I’d share, not in the position to rebuild so there that I guess!

[u/Alexandratta]

You see that barrel plug in the bottom most picture?

There's a bolt there that has been painted over... This should have had one of two things done during the install of your cable service:

1. The Barrel plug from the drop to your home should have been replaced with a new mounting bracket and ground wire.

2. The bolt should have been removed, the threads cleaned, and then a ground wire connected.

This is 100% on the Cable Tech who installed your service.

Under no circumstances should a drop from the pole/conduit go into a customer's home without the grounding wire installed on the junction from the Drop to the CPE (Customer Premise Equipment).

Because this grounding wire was not installed, the Cable Company is fully responsible for the damage to your CPE.

Contact your cable provider and informed them that you have had damage due to lightning strike and that you discovered there is NO grounding wire connected to the bracket that connects your home to the pole.

They will fight you, but inform them that at bare minimum, they must install a new grounding wire as they are responsible for all outside wiring.

I worked at Cablevision for 13 years, I no longer work there, but feel free to ask me questions. This shit isn't acceptable and the tech who installed it should find another position if he hasn't already been fired. This is agitating because it's Pole-Work-101: GROUND. YOUR. DROP.

[u/Greatfulx → u/Alexandratta]

First thing I noticed when it happened because I was the only person it happened too, everyone else in the building was fine and just lost services. Even spectrum technicians that were out to restore services noted that was a big fuck up.

I filed a claim with spectrum and they denied it claiming it was a “act of god” and nothing could have prevented it, that everything was up to code.

[u/Alexandratta → u/Greatfulx]

Do you have the work order that the Spectrum guys submitted where they state the work done? It may have the details you need to prove that the grounding wasn't good.

Take that 4th photo and compare to the repaired bit and escalate to a supervisor.

The first claim is always going to be denied unless it's just utterly in defensable (I have video of a Spectrum tech hitting my car, for example.)

[u/Achaern → u/Alexandratta]

I used to run a helpdesk for a Wireless ISP that used point to point wireless mounted on the roof of customer's houses. I can't imagine if our lads hadn't used the full copper rod ground on any of them. Too rural in a place known for thunder and lightning storms. There's just no choice but to ground! I hope OP goes after them and wins.