Panasonic AE2000 keeps shutting down after startup

[Blu-Velvet]

My Panasonic PT-AE2000U just started developing a shutdown problem over the past week. Right after turning on the power button, it starts to warm up the lamp, the Panasonic logo shows up in a few seconds as usual, but then after about 4-5 seconds it shuts off and will not start up again. Often if I turn the main power toggle switch to off for a bit, and then back on, it will start up after pushing the "on" button, but most often it again shuts down after several seconds. Last night it finally started up and I ran it for a couple of hours with no problems. Tonight again it wouldn't stay on. With luck it will hold out over my next couple of weeks of scheduled basement theatre screenings, but I'd hate to have a bunch of people over for movies and then have the projector refuse to turn on.

I cleaned the filter, which didn't really look dirty, and also vacuumed the air entry/exit ports, but it didn't seem to help. Does this mean there's some auto-protection shutting down (e.g., maybe the fan is going) or that something's wrong with some circuit board? The projector is just over four years old and is on its second lamp, with less than 1600 hours on it (the first lamp lasted for 2700 hours in econo-mode).

Has anyone else had a similar problem with the AE2000 or any other model?

Since the AE4000U is now discontinued, maybe it's time to think about getting an AE7000U plus a 3-D player -- or is the new AR100U a decent 2-D replacement? The AE2000U has been a fantastic projector for the past four years, running almost every night, sometimes for six to twelve hours straight.