Hello,
I have a Sony KV-32FS320 which is about 2yrs old now. Of late I have
noticed a strange problem. Once in a while it will make a clicking
noise(which lasts less than 1sec) and then I notice a flicker in  the
whole picture. Now this "flicker" is not exactly noticable at all,
however I have noticed it a couple of times at different occassions. It
sometimes happens when I'm watching a DVD or even just TV. I have even
tried to change the power strip, however I still have the problem. Any
ideas? Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you

On 2/3/2006, snal***@hotmail.com managed to type:
Yes. There are some capacitors in the high-voltage sections of CRT TVs
that have spark gaps in them, I guess to get rid of extra static
charges or something (well, it's actually a bit of a mystery to me what
they really do).

As dust accumulates in older sets, it allows sparks to jump these gaps,
giving what I think of as a sharp cracking sound.

I bet that's what you  have, and I think it's harmless...

I don't recommend looking inside, as the results might shock you :-)

HTH,
Gino

Thank you for your reply. Is there any way of cleaning this without
actually opening it up? Can I use a air-can blower to randomly spray
through the open areas on the back? Would it hurt? Thanks again!

On 2/6/2006, snalion managed to type:
Afraid not. You'd have to take off the back to see where to spray - 
and even that might not be very revealing. The thing is there are high
voltages in there, and they are stored in capacitors which discharge
*very* slowly (until you touch the wrong thing!), so you could get a
mean shock. It should not hurt you, but then there are a few people who
have died from the police use of Tazers...

It should in any case not harm the set.

Also, it might not even be dust and dirt. Aging might have changed some
voltages internally, causing this arcing.

Arcing (pronounced "arking") is the name for this phenomenon. Also, it
might not even be confined to the spark gaps I mentioned. It might be
jumping from some arbitrary point A to a nearby point B. Cleaning would
help there too, of course.

In my case, when I had a TV that did this, I just accepted it.

Of course, I will never admit to you that my explanations might be
totally wrong :-)  Let's hope not, though.

HTH,
Gino

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