White Noise blasting out of MPC2000xl

Hey Gang.

So twice this week I was playing shows when digital white noise just started blasting out of my MPC2000xl.
It's the same programs I've been using for months, and it was happening even when no samples or sequences were playing.
The first time it was just a big wave of white noise that came and went. But last night, it came, and just kept blasting. It's originating pre volume knob, as I could turn it down with the volume. I tried both outputs. No dice. Just lots of white noise. It was fine however when I just booted it up, and used the sequencer without loading samples (triggering external synths)

I rebooted it, and it would be good for a minute or two, then the same thing.
THEN I started noticing as I was booting the .PGMs, it was sometimes hanging on certain samples as they were loading, and I'd have to reboot again.

Has anyone run into this?
I have a couple of theories. One is both times, we were in REALLY hot and sweaty clubs. Perhaps it was the heat and the humidity causing issues? I'm also thinking it might be an issue with my RAM given that it seemed to also be having issues loading samples. I'm hoping this is the case, as it's a simple enough fix.

I'm thinking I might have to finally go 1000, as I definitely can't bring this thing on stage again till I figure this out. This thing has been a rock solid machine for as long as I've owned it

-PP

definitely clean, or even better, replace your ram (its cheap).
heat and humidity can cause all kinds of weird behaviours in computers - so it could be related.

first step would be ram though, try that then try to abuse it a bit more.