Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

Hello everybody, I'm new to this group, I 've bought a second hand 
XL-7 yesterday and have a very strange problem. Allready did a 
search but couldn't find anything related to this (sorry if it has 
been handeld before)

Here is my problem:

If I turn on the unit using the hard-wired switch on the back, the 
unit turns on (most of the time) then, if I twist the volume knop 
from full down to half-way, or sometimes just barely touch the 
volume knob it goes into automatic power-down.

Then, when I franticly twist the volume knob, it usually goes out of 
this power down, yesterday I was to late and it powered down. 
Pushing the power knob on the front pannel doesn't do anything, and 
after a lot of twisting the volume knob, and using the switch on the 
back I got it to power up again. However the front pannel power on 
button doesn't seem to do anything, and this morning I couldn't get 
it to power on at all.

Does anybody know of this problem? Is the volume knob somehow 
connected to the soft power switch? It's the strangest thing I have 
ever seen on a piece of gear?!

Any help would be greatly appriciated, I would love to dive into 
this machine but allready I am afraidof using it live, seeing it 
could power down just by touching the volume knob...

Thanks in advance,

Ilja