Power off doesn't work

This is a bit of a wierd problem on my 2 GB clip+. The power button doesn’t work turning it off. I mean, I can hold it for a full minute, and no change. It doesn’t even register that it is being pressed. However, if it does turn off by timing out the power off option, then I can press it to turn it back on. There is a hitch with this as well, as immediately after booting, it turns itself off again (saying powering off, goodbye). I can bypass this by holding down any other button when turning it off, but this gets tiresome. The interesting thing about this is the fact that everything still works, I mean plugging it in turns it on, and charges the battery, it writes and reads okay, the only problem is this strange power off thing.

I manually flashed the firmware again, and let the battery drain completely and charged it up again, but no change.

Anybody with any ideas?

I wonder if the switch is defective.  Are you still within the warranty period (1 year U.S./2 years EU)?