Computers and Home Owners Insurance

[james1701]

I recently had a house fire, and my main rig took pretty bad heat and smoke damage. The top of my Haf X has a couple of melted places. After doing a little clean up, It would only fire up on stock settings with no overclock. The Rampage IIIE would not boot when overclocked at all. Also, I have some sata ports on the blink, it freezes sometimes when booting. If I unplug all the hd's except my boot ssd, it will boot up. When I get in Windows, I can plug the hd's in, and they are recognized, and work. There is also massive amounts of stuff on the fans and heat sinks inside my video cards. They are running much hotter now than before the fire. I hit 90C my 5870's while trying to game with the fan at 50% when before, the fan would be at 25% and only 68C. It was running at the time of the fire and sucked in smoke everywhere.

What I am worried about, is they want to try to clean it, and take stuff apart and void a warranty. I know its probably already void from the fire, but with replacement insurance, should I not push for a new rig? I am running a Asus Rampage III with 2 Asus EAH5870's V2, HX1000 power supply, a Corsair 64 Extreme ssd, two WD hd's, an H50 with GT fans, inside a HAF X case, and Logitech G930 headphones, and Logitech Z2300 speakers, Intel 980X processor, Dell U3011 Monitor, and a LG 24" monitor. The U3011 casing warped from the fire. The LG took in a ton of smoke.

Is there any common documentation on smoke damage to electronics I can sight? It has been over two months since the fire, and my insurance company is just getting around too it.

I had some random computer service leave a message for me this evening. I am worried they will want me to ship it off, and they jack leg something together and say its fixed. I have about 6,000 in this rig since I built it last year. It could run at 4.5ghz without breaking a sweat.

I also have an AMD 1055T rig that took less smoke damage in another room, but again I am worried about the effects later.


I have read that smoke acts as an acid on electronic parts. Is there any professional documentation to back this up? I don't want some bozo working for the insurance company feeding me a line of crap and nothing I can do about it. There is no local place I can take it to because it is a high end rig, they don't even stock the parts, or order some things that expensive, let alone attempt to repair it.

 

[oynaz]

Sorry to hear about the fire.

You should definitely get insurance money from your rig. They might try to fix it, but that's their decision. Given that the damage sounds quite severe, I doubt they will bother.

 

[Kukag]

Sorry to hear about the fire.

You should definitely get insurance money from your rig. They might try to fix it, but that's their decision. Given that the damage sounds quite severe, I doubt they will bother.

First off - I'm very sorry about the house =/, as far as the parts go I agree with oynaz,- Seeing as there sounds like lots of internal damage, especially with the chips acting weird - I highly doubt there will be fixing this! Best of luck to you and your computer stuff!

Sincerely,
Kukag

 

[Jimmah]

I am suprised your adjuster didn't have your gear carted out right then and there, must be waiting for the computer service company to come by.

Firstly, take photos and document all parts including serial numbers. If you have reciepts make sure the adjuster knows about them.

Next, expect you might only get your hard drives back, so make a backup of everything and anything you will want in the next 1-4 months. Likelyhood is you won't get anything back, just an estimate on the value and a check that will cover a small part of it. This is where the reciepts come in.

The service guys coming in will likely write it off on the spot even if it boots, there is too much damage already. Make sure they check it over first before it leave your house, make sure they acknowledge the damage as well and the worth of it.

More than likely, if the service shop can write things off it will be right then and there, likely both machines since smoke damage is a bitch to remove and you can't fix melted. See if they will let you keep the busted gear and cut you a check for its worth, if not then the shop guys will be parting it out once the hold on it is up.

<- worked in disaster recovery doing electronic equipment assessment

 

[OBLAMA2009]

for a computer i wouldnt even bother with homeowners. they are going to jack you anyway. i would concentrate on getting payment for my house and furniture

 

[bntran02]

In my experience it does not hurt to push for more.

An adjuster wont try to give you the shaft if you asked for more. I always try to ask for more when dealing with an insurance company even if I feel the amount is already fair.

But like Jimmah said, documenting your equipment value with receipts and such will definitely help your case.

 

[james1701]

I think my receipts are on newegg for most of it. Being just a year old, most of it is still readily available to buy if they want to check prices. When I told them about the monitor, they said just throw it away, and I would be reimbursed. I don't think he grasps the concept of a 1600.00 monitor though. It was only two months old. I figure they are more used to paying off 800.00 Dell systems and calling it a day. I can see where they would choke when reading my estimate of replacing it. The longer they wait, the soon my video cards will no longer be available, and the slowest they can replace them with is two 6950's. Although, last July, my cards were selling at 429.99 a pop.

They did come through for the most part on paying for the structural damage for almost 52,000, but I am still waiting on my personal property. I submitted almost as much for PP, but I know I wont get it all. Things like my dvd collection. I had well over 350 and valued them at 10.00 a pop. Many of them were complete seasons of shows that sell for 50-100.00 a season. Along with many xbox games that won't boot. I claimed 3 laptops, and left 2 off, but they do smell smokey when I run them. 2 Xbox's, a PS3. I think I left off my mint C64 with tape drive, and original games.