Well, I've gotten my hands on another Sony Wega, a KV-36XBR450 from 2002. This one was given to me by a friend of a friend and ranks right up there with the heaviest TV's I've ever moved. The guy who helped me is not in the best phsyical shape; and, apparently, I'm not, either. It was all we could do to get it loaded on the truck and after it falling off the hand truck a few times, we got it in my shop.

The guy said it had a beautiful picture, when it would turn on. When I first plugged it in, it came right on with snow on the screen. I turned it off, dug out my DTV box, attempted to turn it back on, and all I get are seven blinks of the red standby LED.

I'd like to keep this set; but, it's simply too big and heavy. However, I'm still going to attempt to repair it.

I think seven blinks equals HV shutdown and usually means the MCZ3001 IC's are bad.

Maybe or more than likely bad solder joints?I worked on a few Sony's that were pretty bad in that regard and after resoldering the pcb's, they came back to life afterwards....

I've got one of those too, mine is the widescreen 36" model...boy that TV is heavy! (200lbs)
It was given to me by my uncle and had the same problem : it would not turn on. So I managed to change the 2 MCZ3001 chips...and still it would not turn on! It's now sitting in my parents basement, and I'm wondering what to do with it... Do you guys know any other reccuring problems on those set that might be the problem?

Did anyone ever take a hammer to a CRT in one of those sets.? I'm interested to see, just what makes these things so heavy.
I'm going to do an early Panasonic sometime soon. A 31" heavy beast, not worth keeping.

I'd lay odds it's the amount of glass in the front of the CRT. The only "big" set I ever owned was a 32" JVC from like the early '90s. It didn't look like there was any sort of "safety glass" at all....just the front of a HUGE CRT, and the set was like 150 lbs...and the thing was like two and a half feet deep.

Gave it away at the VERY first hint of trouble (a linearity problem within three years)...so I never opened it up to see what was likely nothing but a CRT and a very small single board or two. Didn't even wanna TRY and fix it.

If it's a Sony, and one of those "flat" CRT screens.....I bet it has an OBSCENE amount of glass up front. My 27" WEGA set was heavy like that, and pretty sure it had alot to do with the flat CRT. The weight was VERY front heavy which led me to think that. There is no "chassis" to speak of...or weigh anything in the newer sets. Just a couple PC boards and a plastic flyback with little to no cage...simply fitted into slots in the plastic cabinet.

Yeah, some of the "Boards" I've seen in latter-day big CRT TVs like that don't look like they'd do a cheapie AM pocket radio justice...

You mentioned a hand truck. That may be a problem. I have noticed on some of the Sony sets about that age that the blade of a hand truck can put pressure in just the wrong spot and crack the main board (or boards in that one IIRC). That's how I got my Sony 27". Movers split the main board clean in half. Insurance bought the guy a new set and I patched up the broken board and kept the set for myself. (took me HOURS to fix it).

Check G2 on flyback. there is a small margin of error. too clockwise cutoff and shutdown. Does HV come up before the seven blink shutdown?> Could also be a bad jungle IC on the mainboard. I had to replace one before. Common issue with these.

Besides the first time that it came on normally, HV does not come up before it blinks. The guy told me that once you got it on; you'd better leave it on because you would have a hard time getting it to come back on once it was turned off.