Any computer experts out there?

grja

Our house got struck by lightning a few months ago. It fried a bunch of wires, including our DSL modem. At that time, we switched to a cable modem and didn't hook up on desktop computer since there was no cable jack in the spare room.

We recently got a cable jack and i tried to hook up our computer.Its not working, and i'm afraid we fried our ethernet when the modem blew up. Can i just go buy a new ethernet card and install it, or is my computer shot?

I'm usually pretty computer saavy (i am a programmer) but i don't know much about desktops as my expertise is with laptops.

co18co

If that is the only thing (the modem/ethernet card) that doesn't work, then I'd replace it.  If the hard-drive, programs, etc. work on the computer, then it's definitely worth the investment.

The only thing I would suggest is to try (and this is assuming all the laptops are wireless) to plug the computer directly into the modem, to make sure it wasn't a wire that is fried, but since it's new, that seems unlikely.

 

Hopefully that makes some sense, because I was just kind of spewing my thoughts in no real coherent way. 

grja

Yep, everything else works and all the wires are new and working (since we switched to a cable modem). We have wireless in the house for our laptops and everything is fine. There is just no activity detected when i plug the modem into the desktop.

I was looking online and desktop ethernet cards are not expensive at all! Looks to be about $30! 

co18co

Oooh, awesome!  I hope that's all it is.  I haven't had a desktop in a couple of years, so I am VERY out of the loop with what it takes to run one.  DH has one downstairs, but mostly uses his company laptop.

It really sounds like that's what the issue is.  Good luck!