After thunder, the modem breaks down and you can't get online? Don't pay for it yourself—carriers offer free replacements, and don't miss any of these four items

last year, during the mid-August thunderstorm, Old Chen came knocking on the door after ten p.m., holding his family's light cat: "When the thunder struck, there was a bang inside the house, and the net was gone. Did this thing catch fire?" I took a multimeter and measured it; the power adapter output was 0V, and when the machine was plugged in, no light came on. The next day, I accompanied him to call the 10,000 emergency report and wait for the technician to come and replace it for free. After two days of trouble, I finally got the home network back to its original state. After this trip, I realized that when lightning damages an optical modem, the hardest part isn't the replacement—it's the aftermath after the replacement.

take two minutes to clarify: a lightning strike burned or a normal fault

after a thunderstorm, the technician fears treating overdue payments and area faults as if they're a lightning strike, wasting the trip. If you make a rough judgment first, you'll save a lot of trouble.

lightning damage has a certain ironic feature: a clear time anchor. Old Chen can accurately say, 'After that thunderstorm, it's gone.' This kind of overnight shift from good to completely wiped out is almost always physical damage. Conversely, high light decay can be delayed for days ( receiving light power is near -28), overdue lights are all green but certification is denied, ITMS is reverted to early morning — these soft faults won't cause you to shut down completely.

specific symptoms, there are three levels:

one side note: if the power adapter burns out, don't rush to sentence the whole device to death. I've seen an adapter burn out but the optical modem body is fine, and just swap it to a power supply of the same specification and it's back to life. But the adapter for lightning strike burnt and aging voltage collapse are two different things—aging with no-load capacity and normal load collapses, while lightning strike causes it to reset to zero, and you can tell with a multimeter.

How did

Lei get into the house: There has never been just one car burned down

Mr. Chen's family finally counted and burned three items: the optical modem power adapter, the router's WAN port, and the TV box's network port. Three devices on the same chain represent the "joint seditation" of lightning strikes.

There are three main ways to get

into the house: the most common is the 220V power cord, so the electricity just flows in like this—whoever plugs it in is in trouble; The other is the network cable. During thunderstorms, the high voltage induced by the cable will follow the cable string to the device, so the router's network port transformer and network card chip are the weakest links. Repairing the coil conduit is called a lightning breach; As for the fiber itself, glass is non-conductive, but the metal reinforcement core inside the pigment wire also carries lightning. This was detailed in lightning protection article, so it won't be repeated here.

Old Chen's router fails in a typical way: the WAN port light never turns on, but all four LAN ports can be pinged to each other. This means high-voltage input from the network cable breaks down the transformer chip on the WAN port, while the rest remains alive. Don't throw away this kind of machine; it will still be useful later.

Playing 10000: How to put it that way, it's very important

The biggest difference between an optical modem and a router is property rights: it's the carrier's asset, never sold to you during installation, you have to return the when you cancel or disassemble the device. Therefore, accidental damage from lightning strikes (not caused by human causes) is already within the operator's replacement scope. Calling 10,000 to request repair is free of charge, so you don't have to pay for it yourself.

there are two rules to keep in the bad call report. First, the description says, "After thunder, you can't go online." Don't even say I've opened it myself—Old Chen's first line almost said, "I took a screwdriver to take it open and take a look," but I stopped him. If the body shows signs of disassembly, the technician might come and claim it was human damage, so there's a dispute. Second, before hanging up, ask clearly: will you sign a contract with the new one this time? Some provinces offer a two-year renewal for renewal. If you don't want to renew, you can clarify on the spot and request only the equipment upgrade without changing the package.

there's another exception you need to be aware of: the optical modem you bought yourself (for example, the kind registered second-hand is not included in the free ), so if you get burned by lightning, you have to accept it yourself, or buy another one and register again. In urban areas, people usually come to report to the police the next day. Old Chen called at 10 a.m., and the technician arrived the next morning.

on the day of renewal: watch the technician finish three things before signing the contract

the master came to replace the cat quickly; Old Chen's home took twenty minutes from demolition to renovation. But during these twenty minutes, there are three things worth watching:

First, check the registration of a new cat. New devices need to be recertified, and the PON light only registers when the PON light flashes slowly to stays on. This process usually takes one or two minutes don't rush the technician to cut off the power midway. Second, on-the-spot acceptance: check the backend to see the light decay reading, run a speed test on your phone, and if you have IPTV, check the channel list—this is a scaled-down version of the installation acceptance , done in five minutes, problems found and resolved on the spot, better than reporting later. Third, take a photo with the new cat sticker: SN, default terminal password, and LOID are all on that paper. This is the key to accessing the backend later. Only the sticker gets damp and soaked does you realize how valuable the photo .

right, before leaving, the technician will probably casually suggest, "Should we upgrade to a gigabit package and switch to a 400-megabit optical modem?" Old Chen's 300 Mbps broadband, I shielded it for him—below 500 Mbps, you can't tell the difference. The difference between 3.0 and 4.0 is the math for that post. Don't impulsively buy when you switch cats.

Four Things to Clean Up After Aftermath: Changing the Ways Bridged People Work the Hardest

Master left, and only half the work was done. The new cat defaults to router mode, and the WiFi name reverts to the default string of characters ChinaNet-XXXX. You have to reconnect the home network one by one.

the first item: WiFi reverts to its old name and password. The name and password are exactly the same as before, all family devices automatically reconnect, and you don't need to reconfigure a single vacuum camera; If you casually come up with a new name, reconfiguring a dozen devices one by one could take an entire night. to the entry point for change, just use useradmin, no need to change the super password.

the second item, if you changed the bridge, you have to redo it on the new cat. The new Cat uses router mode; the previous bridging, copied VLAN, and IPTV binding on the old Cat are all gone. The process was still the same as before: get the super password, connect to the WAN for a transcended VLAN, change the bridge to let the router dial, and after making changes, you have to guard against the ITMS pushing back in the middle of the night. Previously, I imported conf backups ( saved before switching to bridge ), which saves half the trouble—although most new cats can't import directly, at least the VLAN numbers in the WAN table are copied somewhere, so you don't have to dig up the backend on site.

third item: IPTV. After bridging, the set-top box black screen is a highly likely event, or is it something VLAN the WAN recording and just make up for it with the original numbers?

fourth item: landline. If you connect to a landline on the optical modem, you have to wait for voice service to re-register—watch the phone light go from flashing to steady on, and only if there's a dial tone in the receiver is it considered active. If there's no response, don't rush to change the phone. voice registration sometimes you have to wait several minutes. Old Chen's family was completely silent. He thought the phone had burned out, but after waiting fifteen minutes, it worked on his own.

Old Chen doesn't know how to bridge, so defaulting to routing mode actually saves him trouble. If my home burns down, it would be a big project: bridging, WAN table, static IP, port forwarding—I couldn't finish it all in less than an afternoon. So I had already copied my key features onto the paper inside the weak current box cover.

a router bought by yourself: lightning strikes are not covered by the warranty

Finally, let's talk about the old Chen router. He took it to after-sales service, and they pointed to the warranty clause saying 'force majeure': lightning strikes are force majeure and won't be compensated. That's true—routers are devices you buy out of your own pocket, and they're different from free replacement offered by carriers.

But if the WAN port burns out and the LAN port is still active, there's no need to rush to discard the router. When switching to a switch or switching the secondary router to an AP, plugging in the LAN port bypasses that bad port, the old router's reemployment is just right. Old Chen's unit was later used as an AP in the living room without any delay.

as for prevention, it's the same old tricks: use lightning protection power strips for equipment, unplug unused power cables during thunderstorms, pay special attention to wires coming in from outside—all the details are in the of the lightning protection article. My current habit is to unplug the router power during thunderstorms, keep the optical modem (for the landline and surveillance), and bet that if it catches fire, someone will replace it for free.

wrap up the whole process: after a thunderstorm, cut off the power first, roughly judge whether it burned→ if it did, call 10,000 to request repair (don't even say it had been dismantled). → technician comes to oversee registration, acceptance, photos→ and aftercare. WiFi, bridge, IPTV, and fixed-line devices→ self-purchased devices should be replaced as APs, replaced as new ones. If you ever get the chance, you'll find that a free replacement is just about fixing the hardware; the network setup at home is built step by step yourself.