I forgot to do the test Bitt suggested... but here's some new observations.

as soon as i put it in the car, it goes into standby in a matter of seconds. I press the top button to wake it, and back into standby again after a few seconds. Rinse and repeat 5 times or so... and it will work for a long time. The length of time is pretty random, anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. But, every time i reseat it... same thing... it goes into standby after a few seconds etc... This is reproduceable.

the other thing is that every once and a while it will go into Tuner mode before it goes into standby, then when i wake it up it's in AUX mode! WTF is that?! Makes me not think it's a power issue ... since i don't know of anyway that a power issue would affect which audio mode it's in.

Hugo/Rob/Patrick/Roger??? Any of you empeg boys have a clue on this one? It's driving me nuts!