What are the chances a power surge can wipe out a whole system? How can I tell?

What are the chances a power surge can wipe out a whole system? How can I tell? I was on my computer and all of a sudden it shut off and the lights in my house dimmed. When I tried to turn it back on, nothing happened and there was a burning smell coming from my comp. I sent in my power supply to Corsair since I have a 5 year warranty, so I'm still waiting to hear back from them.
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Guest [Entry]

"Since it's a Corsair power supply, I would bet it is likely to have saved the rest of the computer. Sags and spikes can both hurt multiple components. If the power supply gave out before it could pass along the bad current, then everything is fine.

The first thing I would do would be to reset the BIOS. How depends on your motherboard, but the easiest would be to remove the battery for about 5 minutes and have it unplugged.

If nothing happens when you try to turn it on, you would start by making sure the power supply will power up. You can do this using a power supply tester, or another computer. You can also trip a couple wires to make the power supply turn on by itself. I don't remember which pins, though.

If the power supply works, I would start by removing all components except the CPU from the motherboard and try turning it on. Hopefully you will get a few beeps. Then add items in one-by-one until you get a working computer, and get everything back in, besides the bad component."