Pioneer Head Unit Acting Weird

I recently purchased a Pioneer DEH-7700MP head unit and I am having some strange problems with it. The stereo has amazing features and I absolutely love it. However the volume seems to have a mind of its own, it increases and decreases randomly. When turned up loud (above 15) it seems to just go up and down. When the radio is played at lower volumes (under 10) the volume will go all the way down and the music will completely cut out. I didnt know if this may be a common problem with this deck or if there may be a wiring problem with my car. I drive a 98 Cavalier Z24 Convertible and there is not much space for a aftermarket deck in the dash. I didnt know if there could be some metal touching the outside of the RCA's causing this problem. There are no speakers run directly off of the deck itself, all four of my speakers and my subs, obviously, are run off of two separate amps. Any insight would be amazing. FYI: I had no problems with my setup before, with my old deck, (old Pioneer CD Player 2800 maybe) other than the fact that I had tremendous road noise. I was running two amps, three channels, off of one set of pre-outs and it was too much for the deck to handle, which is why I upgraded. I think I have included all the necessary info in here but if I forgot something feel free to ask. Thanks for the help in advance...sorry so long :shakehead

sounds like the automatic volume thing is on, look at the manual and see how to turn it off

That had crossed my mind as well, however I didnt have to run any wires for it so I had pretty much dismissed that as a factor. I went ahead and read through the manual online and that stereo does in fact have that feature. I turned it off but since its Sunday and the Bengals are gettin ready to play, Im not goin anywhere untill later. I will let you know how it works. Thanks for the post! :)
DJP2

I turned the ASL setting off and it did correct the fluctuation of the volume. However the sound will still cut out periodically. It seems to go through phases of where it wont cut out at all and then sometimes it cuts out alot repeatedly. The only thing that I can think of is the metal of the RCA's shorting out on one of the other RCA's or a piece of metal back behind the dash. Like I said before, there's not much room behind the dash so its crammed in there pretty good. I would not doubt that the problem may be caused by just that. I will post again if I do find out what the problem is. If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know. Thanks