I have an Onkyo TA-RW244 dual cassette deck that's developed a couple of problems, one of which is very strange. The other day I was working on my equipment stack and I heard a whirring noise. I knew none of my components has a fan, so I looked for the source of the noise and I found that the capstans on deck B were spinning. A few power cycles revealed that the capstans on deck B now spin anytime power is applied to the unit, even if it's in standby mode. I then tried playing a tape to see if this problem affected the use of the deck. The tape played, but only one channel produced audio, the other one didn't even register on the built-in level meter. I didn't try recording anything. Deck A works fine.
Has anyone ever encountered a problem like this? The unit is less than 4 years old and has been used very lightly. It's only plugged into a cheap surge protector, but I've never had any surge damage whatsoever to any other equipment, even items not protected.