I got word back on my fried monitor chasis, and the question was whether I have run the monitor without the isolation transformer. I know not to do that, but it motivated me to take a closer look at the wiring inside the cabinet. The way it is wired, everything is powered through the transformer, including the marquee light (flourescent), and it looks like the marquee light wire connections aren't original (they are connected with snap-n-splice connectors).
Could this be part of the problem? Is anything in the cabinet supposed to be running off of the transformer other than the monitor?
Also, if I somehow did run the monitor (25" k7000) without the transformer for a few seconds what damage would it have caused? Would it fry just the board or the tube as well?