Wii U Will Not Power On After Powering Off

Here's the situation:

I bought my Wii u two days ago. Love the console! There's just one problem: upon initially plugging it in and playing, it performs great. The issue is when I power it off, then try to turn it back on to play later. When I turn the console off, the system has a flashing red LED light where the blue LED power indicator is. When I press the power button on the console, nothing happens. If I try to boot it up using the GamePad, the GamePad doesn't recognize the Wii U and tells me to move closer, even though I'm two feet away from it. The only solution I have found is to unplug the console and then plug it back in. This allows me to finally turn the console on. It still performs well, it just won't turn back on after being turned off. I tried resetting the AC adapter and had no change in result. I even turned off standby mode, thinking that might have accidentally caused some complication; still no fix. I called tech support and they said I could send the console in, but I was hoping there was something else I could do (who wants to send their new toy away for 1-2 weeks??). I wouldn't be opposed to backing up the system and trying to do a system reset, as long as it has the chance to fix it. Any ideas?