>> >>As someone said, it SOUNDS like latchup. This occurs when a parasitic SCR >>formed with the gate transistors and the substrate layer is biased on. Once >>on it stays latched on until power is removed. Taking pins outside their >>design limit voltages is a good way to cause this. Hence the above >>questions. Additionally, the chip has to cool before it will behave normally again, if it ever does. This is a good illustration of why you should never let the protection diodes conduct! -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.