The receiver always goes into protect and im not sure why, it will work for a short time and will then go "off line" and shut off

Right. This means that either you have a short in your speaker cable somewhere or the short-detector circuitry inside has problems. Disconnect all speaker cables and turn the receiver on. If the symptom goes away, turn the receiver off again and connect one of the speaker wires. Repeat until it starts to go into protect again. When it does, the last speaker you hooked up has a short somewhere in the wire.
If protect always comes on, you'll need to get the unit serviced.

If you have a volt meter you may try and repair it yourself. First however disconnect the speakers and see if the set still goes into protect. If so you may have shorted output and drive transistors. There will be open resistors near them as well. You can compare the bad channel with a nearby working channel since normally only channel shorts out at a time. Always replace outputs in pairs since they in push pull configuration .

It is possible that the amplifier had encountered a fault with a higher current drain which had triggered it to a protection fault condition. The fault can be your output drivers- the MOSFETS/IC's fitted for both the channels, Use a meter after disconnecting to check for short in the drivers. Disconnect the positive and negative voltages to the output and see if the protect changes. Even a fault in the preamp stages that drives in high current into the output can shut the Amplifier. Sometimes this can be a noise like a HUM or HISS before the protect works. Faulty capacitors in these circuits also can cause similar issues and needs close observation.
You need to confirm and replace the specific stages or outputs. If not there can be issues in the mother board, maybe the protect circuit by itself is shutting off due to a faulty bias , maybe a leak in any voltage/current sensing circuit. Also disconnect the speakers and test, if the protect is off then check for short on the speakers.

Hi:
First disconnect all speakers from the unit and then try turning the unit on too see if it still goes to protect mode. Protect mode is a shut down feature that shuts down the unit because of a shorted speaker or speaker wires are touching each other. If the unit does not shut down after disconnecting all speakers then reconnect them one at a time while turing the unit on after each conncection until you find the shorted speaker. If it shuts down with no speakers attached to it then you have a internal problem with the amplifier section, probably a shorted output transistor in the Amp circuit or preamp circuit.

Hi, you have a short somewhere along your speaker wire. When the receiver goes into protection mode, it shuts itself down so you don`t blow your on-board audio amp.

If you see protect come up on your Receiver, you have got a short somewhere. What`s happening is your receiver is sensing an overload somewhere in your system and if it does not go into protection mode and shut down , there will be permanent damage done.

You will need to check the speaker wire if it is not bridging somewhere or sometime else..

Have a nice day..

Check for shorts in the speaker lines.The easiest way to do this is to disconnect all the speaker lines from the amp. Now, turn it on and see if it goes into protect. If it does,that tells you that the problem is in the amp.
If it doesn't go into protect, reconnect the speaker lines one at a time until you find one(or more) that shuts the amp down. That would be your short.

Disconnect all the speaker wires at the receiver and turn it back on. If itdoesn't go into protect mode, your receiver is ok.

Reconnect the speakers one at a time being sure to turn the receiver off each time you connect a speaker and turn the receiver on until your receiver goes into protection mode again.

When it goes into protect mode again, the last speaker you connected has a problem. Trace the speaker's wire to the speaker looking for cuts or shorts along the way.

If you have a multimeter, switch itto ohms and check the speaker for a dead short, if you show a dead short you have a blownspeaker. Hope this helps.

--Matt

disconnect the speakers and see if it does the same thing.
if it does not shut down,check that the speaker wires are not touching on the back of the speakers.
many times,people run over the wires with a vacuum or similar and a short results,or bump the speaker.most people have the leads way too long,and even if one strand touches,it will shut down the amp.
if it still shutting off,there is an internal problem.
the best place to go with an onkyo is an authorized depot.
they are tricky to work on.
i did onkyo warranty for 7 years.

It is important to know just what attemps have been made to repair the receiver. What parts have been replaced, who fixed it (a service center or a freind or yourself)? If it has a bad channel and if just one bad part was missed and not replaced, you can burn up all the parts that have just been replaced.

When a receiver shuts off seconds after turing it on, this is known as the protect mode. Most of the time is has a shorted output channel causing this. Sometimes it can be caused by a transistor in the protect circuit shorting out when the channel that is shorted goes bad. Even after repairing the bad channel, it will still go into protect if the protect transistor is bad and has not been replaced. Many times a bad channel can still have some components in it that are bad after it appears to have been repaired. This is were experience working with these type of circuits comes in handy.

Let me know exactly what has been done with full details and I may be able to help you locate the current problem.

Dave

disconnect all speaker leads at the unit,power it up then see if it'll stay on. if it does, reinstall one speaker lead at a time until it goes into protect mode. that speaker line will probably have a short in it. Just run a peice of skr wire straight from the unit to the sspeaker in doubt, hooks em up see what happens. if it shuts down have that skr ckd.if it works, just rip out the old shorted line and run new stuff.