High volume shut down?

A friend gave me a Sony Xplod CDX CA650X about a year ago and I finally got around to installing it. Everything works fine except when I crank it up, it shuts itself down, then 10 seconds or so later it'll come back on. It'll work fine as long as I don't turn it up past 1/2 way. What gives? I also notice that the lights slighty "pulse" to the bass, I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not. My friend said it never did that when he owned it.
Any idea's??? Thanx.

If you have an amp hooked up the lights dimming is probably because of the draw on the battery. As far as it shutting down I couldn't tell you. My guess.....It's a Sony.

the protection circuit kicks in because:

1) The amp is getting too hot

2) the power lines are shorted or you are drawing too much power

3) The impedance of the speaker(s) is too low

It's not the speakers, their Polk Audio DB690 6x9's @ 300watts, the wires are brand new monster cables (which I double checked). So what would make it overheat?

the protection circuit kicks in because:

1) The amp is getting too hot

2) the power lines are shorted or you are drawing too much power

3) The impedance of the speaker(s) is too low

BINGO!

nG

Im thinking you are driving hte amp into suvere clipping and overheating the amp.

that would be my guess too, from previous experiences ...... try turning the sensitivity or gain knob on the amp down to halfway or less and see what happens

that would be my guess too, from previous experiences ...... try turning the sensitivity or gain knob on the amp down to halfway or less and see what happens
Yeah, I 2nd that. Too many people use the gain knob as volume and not to equal out the system:banghead:

There's no amp. It's just the stereo straight to the speakers.

HU to the speakers? HU's have protect? lol. into a 4ohm load thay are not capeable of more than ~36w and that is completely clipped without an internal amp.

im no HU expert so, yeah.

O.K., explain it to me like I'm a 5th grader, 'cause I didn't understand any of that.
I've just got a 50 watt stereo hooked up to speaker's that are label to handle 300 watts. The wires run straight from the radio to the speakers, nothing in between.
4ohm load, protect, clipped??? Yeah, I didn't understand any of that.
Sorry.

Instead of everyone worrying about it clipping and overheating and the protection circuit kicking in has anyone thought that it might just be another case of a crappy Sony product that is causing all the problems?

not all things sony are crappy. Their higher end HU's are actually really nice for the price. ;)

BCAE1.com :)

that particular sony is walmart crap

an internal amp (to the headunit) can still overheat if driven hard enough. Just remember, max output occurs at around half of the total volume range - so if the volume goes to 50, 25-30 is max volume for the internal amp.