My wife called me at work while he was there for my input. She relayed to me he gave her a repair price of $500-$600. Considering the set was 2yrs old and I paid around $800 for it I didn't think that was a good investment until I did my own homework. SO the tv repair guy charged her $60.00 for the house-call but said he would waive the charge if we decided we didnt want to to fix it and he would haul it to the trash for us. (yes i'm serious)
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So tonite I decided to check ebay for bulbs and that led to google and I'm questioning myself before I start spending money.
What I can see.
Our RCA set has the dreaded 5 second blink, pause... 5 second blink and after the 5 minutes the light blinks steady for a minute or so. The troubleshooting guide in the TV manual indicates a bulb.
After reading some posts here, I'm reading about other potential problems like a ballast and/or the color wheel. The symptoms of the color wheel may or may not fit. When I hit the power button I can hear what I would describe as a "fan" almost like I hear on my laptop but it's intermittent.. I dont think it's loud, I have to get my ear pretty close to the back of the set to hear it. It's almost as if it's "Cycling"?
I can also see a couple "red" lights in 2 areas of the main board when it's plugged into the wall.