No Picture with a Sony Trinitron KV-40XBR700

[SavannahLion]

We have a Sony Trinitron KV-40XBR700 that I moved into a spare room. I won't go into detail the severe trials we went through except suffice to say, I missed the Super Bowl lying on the floor in a semi-coma while my wife (and friend) enjoyed the game on one of our giant flat panels. What love 

The TV sat for a short while in my pickup (three days) covered in moving blankets and tarp, off loaded and moved into the living room where it went through a short video/audio  test (passed) then proceeded to move it into the spare room. Where it again sat for another 7 days while I recovered am still recovering and put it through another video test where it failed. No image, zip. Tried other ports and other video sources but it appears (according to the user manual) I may very well be locked out from that particular feed. I can re-enable them, but I need to see the menu to do it. So what I have is is Video 1 which is Composite/S-Video/Audio. Composite was tested, but not S-Video (I  misplaced my S-Video cables)

The front Standby light blinks after a power on 5 times, most of the time. I have counted 11 blinks and a couple of times with four blinks. I obtained the service manual (which I can send if requested) and found that the error (standby) light is supposed to blink in cycles. eg, five blinks, pause for a few seconds, 5 blinks, repeat. That isn't happening here, it just blinks five times (sometimes 11 rarely 4) and stops.

I pulled the back cover off (23 damn screws! WTH?) and eyed the neck. I can see a very faint orange glow after powering on. To see it though, I have to look dead one from behind. There is no visible glow from the side. It buzzes (of course). I can barely hear a high pitch whining noise. Like the kind of noise you hear from a transformer maybe. Nothing else (except audio).

Compressed air got rid of the majority of filthy dust and I visibly checked for loose connections (I did not unplug/plug because the more interesting ones are in and around the flyback) and checked for blown, leaking or bulging caps (there are none that I can see).

On a side note: I did see a few tiny glass light bulb or vacuum tube looking things, slightly smaller than a typical LCD soldered onto the board around the flyback area. The mark on the PCB looks similar to a resistor inside of a circle. I'm searching the schematic to see what they are. Are these supposed to light up? They don't look burned so I'm mystified as to what they are.

Where do I go from here? The service manual states the problem can lie in one of three areas, three bad CRT driver chips, a bad IC on another board, or adjusting the CRT with a test signal (which I cannot do) However, the error light only blinks for one cycle and does not repeat. The manual clearly states the error light repeats. So I can't decide if this is the correct troubleshooting path.

Edit: Corrected mispelling

[SavannahLion]

Hhmm... I expected some kind of response.... A, " you," probably would have sufficed. 

Well... I got specs on the TDA6111Q (and source of roughly $5 a pop) and the CXA2150Q. Unfortunately the CXA2150Q is as rare as the fabled Composite->RGB IC from Sony. Found several sources sans prices and one that may sell one for $80. Yikes! I did discover that it was commonly used in "HD" CRT tubes sold by Zenith, Sony, etc. So a Craigs search might yield a donor.  What really caught my eye during a cursory read is that the CXA2150Q supports frequencies as low as 15k but it's promoted as an HDTV component.  That requires more reading methinks.

But I digress, looking at the schematics and voltages, I think I can test some of the voltages on the three TDA6111Q and see if they're within spec. I admit it kind of creeps me out a bit noting some of the voltages are nearly 200. I like how the Sony manual marks the dangerous lines in bold and red. Unfortunately I have no hope of seeing the waveforms on some of the pins so I guess I'll hobble through it best I can.

Sadly, this repair is probably going to take forever. My littlest ones are "curious" about what daddy is doing so I'd rather work on it when they're asleep. But I'd like my wife to be awake in case I have an emergency. That window is so narrow that it might as well not exist.