eMac Ethernet Hit by Lightning

It's part of the motherboard, so unless your machine is covered under AppleCare, be prepared to spend a lot of money for a motherboard replacement.

Even if you do have AppleCare, it won't cover that kind of damage. You'd need insurance (such as www.safeware.com, which covers lightning, i think) to cover damage like that.

Were the machines plugged into surge protectors? If so, check out what (if any) warranty coverage you have from the protector manufacturer.

Failing that, the cheapest thing to do would probably be to get wireless USB dongles (or AirPort cards) and set up a wireless network rather than replacing the MB "just" to fix the dead ethernet ports.

Agreed, this will be your best option unless you need really fast transfer speeds between computers. Even if you do consider using target disk mode between the macs or buying an external usb2/firewire drive to share among the 3 computers.

Check with your home insurance company. They may cover you or not. Get airport cards-not USB cards and a router. sam

You can get wired USB adaptors, which is what I would suggest if you have USB2.0.

File an insurance claim.

Thanks for all the help. I am going to pickup a couple of Apple Airport Extreme Cards and the Hub this afternoon and install them.

The folks at the Apple Store was trying to sell me new Motherboards. LOL! Yeah right! $800 each.

As far as insurance goes, I have a $1000 dedeuctable and the total damages to everything was around $1600. So we are going to eat the whole bill as I don't want my rates to raise.

Remember, Insurance is Theft by deception.

Thanks again for all the help!

Danny

You might want to get some third party insurance than, like Safeware. They offer insurnace with no deductable.