Yes, a high voltage surge can travel through an Ethernet port and reach the PC.
Yes, a high voltage surge can travel through an Ethernet port and reach the PC.
Yes, a high voltage or surge can travel through an Ethernet port to a PC via a router.
It doesn't work because the ports aren't linked together. Each port is connected through a bridge. If one port gets damaged by a surge, it can destroy that port or even the whole router. To avoid this, the router should be placed before the connection points to protect it.
Certainly. Our chimney was struck by lightning many years back, and even though the phone line looked unharmed, the surge forced it through the modem and into the PC I was using as a router via a serial connection. This damaged the IO chip and destroyed the diode on every NIC connected—though admittedly they were coaxial cables with no isolation. The incident also produced smoke around the circuit breakers and caused a neon light to explode on one of the fused spurs, despite the main cabling being far from the impact zone. This demonstrates how a surge can travel considerable distances before encountering resistance, as even minor over-voltages can destroy diodes. Later, when I switched to RJ45 for networking, those cards continued functioning because the diodes had performed as fuses.
Electricity moves through any copper wire. That’s why phone and cable companies must ground their wires before they reach your house.