Thanks for the detailed and helpful feedback Volker and to everyone else who replied.
I'll do some testing and see if I can salvage the scanner. On Tue, 2007-09-18 at 19:44 +1200, Volker Kuhlmann wrote: > The computer case is earthed, so you should be seeing the same sparking > when touching the USB cable shield to the water tap, or the mains earth > wire. Dito when you charge yourself up walking over the carpet in dry > conditions and touch anything else like taps, door handles, ...
