jacksonian Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 I just came back from a week of vacation and noticed that a tree in my yard had been hit by lightning. It apparently ran through the yard hitting the invisible dog fence and blew its controller under the house (even though I had it on a surge protector). I thought everything inside was ok until I noticed that I couldn't connect to my C4 system with the iPhone. After checking the router (Apple Extreme), I found that 2 out of 3 of my LAN ports were dead. Now I can't remember if those are the 2 ports that I had my Media Controller and Multi-Tuner plugged into or not. But once I bought a new router and got everything set back up, the C4 gear connected like usual.BUT, when I tried to play an XM station, all I got was a very faint and garbled sound. You can barely make out the song/artist, but it sounds like a really really weak am signal. So then I tried to play an mp3 instead. What I got was that same garbled faint XM station that I was playing before, not the mp3. Then some of the controls started acting up (for example, I couldn't move the volume slider via the iPhone for a music zone). My thermostat controls still seem to be working normally. (music and thermostat are my only uses right now)My crackpot theory at this point is that the lightning surge (that outlet for the invisible dog fence was right under my living room where my C4 gear is) ran in and fried my ports on my Extreme and also played a little haywire with my C4 gear. Everything I have was on a surge protector, but I've always read that they can't really shut it all out. I can't think of any other explanation for why my C4 system is acting screwy. I've sent my dealer an email for help, but I wanted to see if anyone had ever heard of anything like this before and also if anyone had any suggestions for isolating the problem. My fear is that I'll need to replace my media controller or tuner or both.Thanks, Brent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdvet30 Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 I purchased a whole house surge protector for about $250 - plus some for the electrician to install it. I don't have any true surge protectors anywhere else. The unit is hardwired into a breaker in the garage. I realize that is not much help now - but it may be in the future.http://www.drillspot.com/products/120895/Sentrex_PA120T_Hardwired_Surge_Suppressorhttp://www.wiremold.com/shared_content/pdf/ed1198.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Try rebooting your system.Unfortunately I think you have bigger issues than that from the strike, but that is a good place to start.A reboot can fix a lot of things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacksonian Posted June 17, 2009 Author Share Posted June 17, 2009 I've tried a couple of resets and power cycles without success last night. So my next crackpot theory was to unplug everything and let them sit overnight and then I'll try restarting things this afternoon. I guess I just would have expected that if it was going to cause problems, it would have just killed the controller rather than an apparent random confusion of it, but then I know very little about the inner workings of these things. I'll let you know how it goes this afternoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Keep us posted.It sounds like a call to the insurance company is in order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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