How would I know if a potential power spike affect my laptop parts

I just installed an SSD drive in my laptop and I am worried something happened to it already, during a thunderstorm I was on my laptop then the the lights in my room went down and went back up briefly.

What is/are signs of a power spike damage on a laptop?

*Note right now I am typing from my laptop, and everything is fine on the account of a glitch I just had a few minutes ago but that may have been something pushing a key down on my keyboard.

 

Their has been no change to my my windows 7 score numbers is this a good indication?

 

WEI isn't really a good judge of any power issues you might have. Most likely you'd see stability problems with your AC adapter, motherboard, other peripherals that draw power. My guess is that it didn't cause anything dramatic as it still works seeing as a short would probably cause something fail. As a last resort you could use a voltage meter to check certain components/connections but in all honesty it isn't worth fretting over.

 

From what you describe it is safe to assume that nothing happened this time.It may not happen many times but sometimes when the power comes back it surges and as a result it fries certain electronic parts.Let that be a lesson.You can protect your notebook very very cheaply against surges.(keep in mind that if you use a brick that they have built-in some basic protection against surges.)

 

If you are really interested in testing for this (and I would if I depended on this notebook in a business setting) I would download a couple of utilities that will stress the RAM, CPU, GPU and HD on your computer for at least 30 minutes. Preferably, I would want as many of these tests run at the same time.

The notebook should be on a flat smooth surface (desk/hardwood floor/etc.) and additionally, I would recommend a notebook cooler while running the above stress tests.

If it can pass the above with no errors or lockups for 30 to 60 minutes, I would be satisfied that the computer is normal.

BTW, this is my normal new computer 'routine' before I start installing any programs or worse yet, actually trusting the computer with any of my data. The only difference is that I let the stress tests run for 24 to 36 hours on a new computer.

Like everyone mentioned, it doesn't seem that your computer has suffered; but that can only be verified when the components are stressed to their maximum as wPrime, Memtest, a thorough defragger (Perfect Disk 11 set to 'Agressively consolidate free space' in the options) and a game demo can do.

 

From what you describe, it is extremely unlikely that your laptop was affected in any way whatsoever. Your power supply decouples your laptop fairly effectively from the power grid. Since you did not report any obvious damage to your home wiring, your laptop most likely did not feel anything at all.

 

I would hook a voltmeter to the power supply and read the current and voltage draw to see if it's consistent. However, in all likelihood if it hasn't failed yet it won't.