Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater My system or the reciever?

I picked up an open box Denon AVR1705 last night. I have an old Sony DE-545 that the Denon will be replacing. The Sony believe it or not has been great up to this point. It's made it through 3 moves plus I have regularly pushed it pretty hard. Recently it started going into "Protect" mode after about an hour of usage or so. Hence, I picked up the Denon.
Last night I hooked everything up to the Denon. Ran through some sound tests and made sure each speaker was functioning properly (i have a 5.1 system). I then decided to turn up the volume a little to see how it sounded...turned it up to about -10 on a dial that goes from -70 to +15. It was only on -10 for about 30 seconds or so and i turned it back down to -40. About 10 seconds after turning it down the thing completely shut off. When i went to turn it back on i swear i saw a white flash. Now it comes on briefly and shuts itself off after a few seconds. There is no way to my way of thinking that -10 with all speakers set to small blew out the reciever.

Any opinions?

By the way my system is:
Mains: M60TI's
Surrounds: Bose Accoustimass 7 (don't laugh)
Sub: SVS PB10