Sever lighting storm early in the evening last week knocked out a DX-120 and they called me 7:00 the next morning, in other words no one had any details on what happened.

Instead of troubleshooting it then and there, I swapped the unit out with one of my spare cabinets and programmed it with a back up from the original installation. My logic was, even after I tried swapping cards it still MIGHT NOT work, where as a new unit WOULD work.

At the shop I pulled all the cards and the unit booted up with just the mother board and CPU board. After I added that DPM8 card it failed. The test phone on ports 101 and 102 had dark displays. I replaced the DPM8 card and all sixteen ports worked.

I reinstalled the cabinet and found that ports 104, 108, and 112 had dark displays on the phones. I swapped the port/ext with some free ports.

Now line five has a distinct hiss on the line. I'll swap CO ports four and five to see if the problem moves. Telco tested the lines and it appears its an inside problem.

Since a lightning strike can cause a myriad of problem that may not be immediately evident, I'm going to replace the entire system and let his insurance company pay for it.

I don't think its going to be hard to explain it off as a lightning strike as his file servers got fried and the coke machine is dead.

We did figure out that lighting most likely hit the top of their 40 foot grain elevator as half the surge suppressors on the dozen electric motors were melted.

You think its a good idea to replace the entire system or let the owner make the choice?

[Edited to correct typo in thread title, for search purposes]