Start by checking the power supply fuse. And any other fuse elsewhere.
You may get lucky; most likely not, but try the cheap stuff first. If
the modem was plugged into the phone, you may get "lucky" that the phone
was an expensive fuse for the modem. Try another power supply if
replacing the fuse doesn't work. Go to a basic system: power supply,
mobo, CPU, ram. Add the other stuff in the obvious order. Do the cheap
fixes first.

You're right that lightning is strange stuff when it comes to what was
spared and what was fried. Truly an act of God. The weirdest lightning
strike I had was a friend's Compaq Presario. Came in via phone line.
Fried internal modem and all, count 'em all, user usable expansion slots
-- the compaq video card and such are on the mobo. The rest of the
computer worked fine. Put an external modem on a serial port and the
computer runs just dandy, still, about six months later. Go figure.

best of luck,
Jim Griffin

Eric Johnson wrote:
>
> A good friend just called me this morning saying his computer (an
> HP Pavilion Pentium III) won't start. There was a whopper of a
> lightning storm last night. You've heard the story before, right?
>
> I asked if he had it plugged in to his UPS - no. Was the modem
> connected too?, I asked - yes. The phone on the same desk was
> destroyed, he told me. He's going to check guarantee coverage.
>
> I haven't seen the toast yet and know that lightning is a very
> mysterious thing, but . . . What have you all seen of this sort of
> damage? Could it be that it only fried the power supply and the
> modem? It'd be a shame if the MB and/or processor and/or monitor
> got cooked.
>
> Gracias,
>
> Eric
>
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