Hello,
I turned the TV off at night and tried to go to sleep. Everything was working perfectly with the TV and it had been working perfectly that way since I bought it (9 years ago!). There was no malfunction indication of any kind (bad picture, bad sound, smell, etc.) before I turned it off. After I turned it off for no more than 5 minutes, I heard a loud sound like something bursted (sounded like "pak!") and there was burning smell coming out too. I believe there was a flashing light coming out too -- but not sure because my eyes were closed and the loud sound may have caused the brain to imagine the flashing light. It was late at night and I figured it must be a blown capacitor or resistor. In the morning, just by curiosity, I tried to turn it on with the remote controller and it didn't turn on. No sound, picture, red indicator light, or relay clicking or anything. I tried to push the ON switch on the unit directly and there was nothing -- complete quiet. Obviously there was no power feeding anything. I made sure by unplugging and plugging in. While plugging in, I observed a small spark at the outlet too (just like when you plug something in and you occasionally see a small spark). Looks like there was still power circulating on some part of the circuit.
I opened the back cover, removed the circuit boards, and tried to find a blown component. I tried for a few hous but to my surprise, all circuit elements appear to be 100% inact! The only fuse in there is also not blown. There was no indication of what may have bursted at all. Everything looked clean or evenly covered with a thin layer of dust. The picture tube and the copper coil looked ok -- no burn, broken, or anything. Do you think it's the flyback transformer? From my understanding, it generates most of the other voltages used in the unit. Or anything else I should be looking at? I'm still wondering where the burning smell came from. Thank you!