Well, I guess I'm back to the empeg BBS to try to figure out my problems (was thinking it was my car for a while so was posting to that messageboard...). Anyway, I sent in the unit, but the guys over at empeg told me it ran through the tests just fine. They were also nice enough to replace my cracked fascia for me. Thanks guys :) Anyway, here's what's going on:

-- When I turn the unit on, occasionally it doesn't boot, the screen just hangs with a solid white color. Pressing and holding 'up' to turn it off doesn't help, the unit just has to be pulled out and plugged back in, which causes...

-- A loud pop/squeal when I disconnect the unit with the power on. Normally I try not to do this but sometimes I need to, in the case above. However,

-- When I shut the unit off normally (pressing and holding up or turning off the car) I get a different kind of pop, a little.. "beefier" if you will. More of the kind of pop you think of when you like, drop the needle onto a record. I don't know if I explained it well, but it annoys me, and passengers ("What was that? Is it supposed to do that?"). :(

-- after playing the unit for a few hours in my car (on long car trips), mp3s start to skip and chirp loudly.. sometimes even it'll break out into the following problem, which is

-- by far the worst one, meaning I could live with all of the above easily if this was fixed: a HORRIBLE screeching noise occasionally where I have to just shut off the unit as soon as possible. It might be the amp, I'm not sure. I've played a little bit with it when it happens: stepping on the gas hard sometimes can cause it, stepping on the brake while it's happening changes the tone of the screeching, playing with the volume during the screeching has no affect (on the volume - trust me, it's loud). This all leads me to believe that it has something to do with the amp and power levels, but I'll leave it to the geniuses on the board to suggest solutions, I'll just present the facts. :)

Anyone had anything like this happen? I'm extremely discouraged.