Audio Problems With Pioneer VSX-816

I've had the receiver hooked up for about two months now. I don't know when it started, it seemed to start suddenly. My left rear speaker will cut in and out. There doesn't seem to be any set pattern to it, it may start immediately when I start watching something or minutes after. Occasionally there will also be a quiet staticy popping noise. It's only noticeable as a small distraction. When it first happened I thought it was part of the movie.

When the sound cuts it will come back by either itself, when I turn the receiver off and on, cycling between the stereo/auto-surround/ect. features, or by cycling the advance surround features. Doing all this isn't even a guarantee the sound will come back on, I may have to do this trick a couple of times before it'll actually come back on. It will only happen on the left rear speaker also, so far non of the others have been affected.

I've narrowed it down the the receiver by switching speakers, switching wires, and it seems to happen on all inputs. One other thing. I finally opened it up tonight and noticed that the fan doesn't seem to be working. I don't know if it should go on immediately, after a few minutes or by tempature but so far I havn't seen it nor have I ever heard anything on in there.

I'd like to be able to fix this myself. I really don't want to have to take it in for repair. I'd appreciate any help I could get with this because it certainly is annoying.

I agree, this receiver is great other than this little set back. I have noticed myself that once it warms up for a while, I have no problems with sound cut out. No static nothing, it works perfect. I'd still like to find a way to fix it without having to pay for repairs (mostly since I don't have the money for it right now), but since I found a work around for it my irritation levels have dropped dramatically. Let me know how yours is working since it was repaired.