My ST8-XME arrived back from SBIG on Tuesday. The problem was with the circuit board that the power and USB plug in to. I'm 99% sure that some kind of power spike went through the USB cable when I was unplugging & replugging it to diagnose a software crash on my PC.
Never again will I unplug or plugin an expensive CCD camera on that PC without the PC, power supply to USB cable and camera turned off.
Repair cost was $455US which doesn't sound bad until you convert it to $AU and add shipping
Great service from Bill @ SBIG throughout the process.