Re: Lightning strike

When you get a close lightning strike, you'll know if it goes directly through the wires, because every electrical device in the house will fry out.

However, the enormous electromagnetic field generated by a strike can induce power spikes to at least 6kV in nearby wiring without actually touching the wires directly -- more than enough to, for example, produce visible arc flashes across open electrical outlets and fry random things connected to the electrical system.

In short, the only way you're going to figure out what died on that system is to swap components out piece-wise until yhou find the problem. However, the PSU is the first candidate -- and to answer your other question, yes, there are several ways a failed PSU can kill a motherboard (or even an entire system in some cases).