10 y.o. CRT, switch it on in the morning, it flickers a lot, then settles
down 5 mins later. During the day, a couple of times I see an amber
coloured "thin line flash" and hear a crack/pop noise. Tube is probably
going.


There's a slim chance of a catastrophic failure with smoke and flames.
If you switch it off overnight you should be OK but it's probably time
to look for a replacement.

In theory your TV is repairable but if it was mine I'd replace it. A TV
that crackles and pops is probably overheating some components which
might well fail soon after you get the set repaired. In any case the
repair will cost you a significant fraction of the cost of a new
flatscreen TV and you would be without a TV while the repair was done.

Or it's the flyback going, could be something as simple as the flyback's
lead has worn insulation, hence the cracking noises you hear as it arcs to
the chassis, or bad solder joints.

but to be honnest, unless you know how to discharge a crt, and are happy
poking around something with 20,000 or so volts on it, get someone who knows
what he's doing to do it, thats if there are any real tv repair men left,
modern lcd and plasma TV's are 'repaired' by substituting boards,

if you have a tv repair shop near you, and they still work on crt's, take it
down, they usually give you a free diagnosis, and if it is the flyback, it
shouldent be too expensive to have replaced (i have a 25 inch monitor in a
video games machine, hantarex polo 2.... anyone who knows them will know the
flyback is the weak point on them, and it's about 20 quid for a new one)