Acer Aspire 5336, struck by lightning..

Hello everybody! I'm new here so sorry if somebody else asked this question..

About a year ago my laptop (the Acer Aspire 5336) was struck by lightning, that meaning I was using an ethernet cable at the time when my house was hit by lightning, the electricity traveled down through my router (knocking that out) and ended on my laptop.

I was a bit scared and worried. I did try turning on my laptop afterwards but it would power up for about 3-4 seconds and then crash. So I figured my laptop was screwed.

Well a year on. I started thinking why don't I just repair it? I haven't really got the money to buy a new laptop, and considering I can get a motherboard for £30 I thought, why not?

What my question is... Can my laptop actually be repaired by replacing the motherboard?

I've seen people post online about how it can be fixed by replacing the motherboard, but I'm very skeptical about this incase it's another problem and not the motherboard.

The computer is about 4 years old so it's not covered by the warrenty. And I haven't got the money to get it repaired by a professional.

If anyone could help me out with this question I'd be very greatful Smiley Happy

Accepted answers

IronFly

changing the motherboard on a laptop is like changing 99% of hardware, so 99% it will fix your issue. Smiley Very Happy

in my opinion, i will only repair it if i found a very cheap motherboard, under 150$.

All comments

IronFly

changing the motherboard on a laptop is like changing 99% of hardware, so 99% it will fix your issue. Smiley Very Happy

in my opinion, i will only repair it if i found a very cheap motherboard, under 150$.

abrasax

Once upon a time i let 12V through the usb port on my aspire 5742g. It fried the motherboard, the cpu and the ram. So yeah, it's probably not just the motherboard.

SpidFerd

Thank you very much for your reply!

I'm still really unsure about this, incase it's also fried my cpu as well.

Luckily enough the motherboard I've found comes with a free cpu. But as I said I'm still skeptical incase my power supply surged.

Thank you

SpidFerd

But I really would like to bring up my originial question.

I understand replacing the motherboard replaces a lot of the components. But will the completely fix my laptop?

IronFly

No one can be sure at 100% that a motherboard change can fix your issue.

laptop motherboards normally has nearly all the hardware components needed to run (CPU can be missing, since it depends if it's soldered or socketed), but...

have you checked if your AC charger works?

have you checked your HDD?

have you checked your ram sticks?

have you checked that your laptop monitor works?

as you can understand, a lightning damage can be worst than it appears at a first sight.

i had a similar issue years ago, lightning through telephone line....

modem/router died

12 port switch died

DVR and 6 cams died

and many other little issues

and i was the luckiest of my road (i got a good insurance), other got big LCD TV fried, brand new washing machine etc etc

SpidFerd

Once again, thank you for your reply! Smiley Happy

The only thing I can confirm that is working is: HDD and AC Charger.

I did forget to mention in my original post, before the laptop crashed nothing came up on the screen, it did light up, so I assume it's working, but its recieving nothing?

Also I have no ways of testing my RAM, I'll just have to assume that hasn't been affected.

I also remember someone said that once a laptop gets struck it's likely to be damaged in the long run. So would it even be worth it to repair it for £30? (about $50)