We’ve had a Sony Wega TV with a 32" screen since 2004. Last October we had to have a member of The Geek Squad come out and repair the on-off switch mechanism, because when we pushed the button on the remote or on the set itself, it took several attempts in order to get the set to come on. And now the last few days the switch is doing the same thing again.
We had a problem getting the correct part (“mainboard,” apparently) last October, suggesting the part was out of stock; the situation may be worse now. What is the best thing to do? Ask.com was no help.
The on/of is generally controlled by a relay on the board that goes bad. The relay is somewhat generic and could be replaced by soldering a new one in place. Apparently, this is not done any more. They find it cheaper to replace the entire board. In that case, maybe refurbished parts are available. TV’s have come down so much in price that repairs need to be considered carefully. Anything approaching half the value of a replacement should be considered scrap in my opinion.
Supporting what Al Bundy said the only practical course would be a do-it-yourself fix. If you’re not handy with a soldering iron maybe someone you know is, because it probably would be a simple and cheap fix to just replace a relay on the mainboard. All it would cost would be the price of a relay which wouldn’t be much.
I had a 25" Sony Wega from 1999 to 2009 (gave it to my sister when I finally got an HD, its still working today!) and they’re nice TVs. Pretty much the best tube TV made (they were the first flat screen tube TVs) and worth trying to fix (cheaply anyway). If for some reason you couldn’t find a compatible replacement relay I’d fix it by just shorting the power relay circuit ‘on’ and plugging the TV into a remote on/off switch. Search online, you’d be amazed what you can find. I had a Panasonic DVD recorder that just quit and I found online that it was just one bad capacitor, and a step by step slide show on how to replace it!
Be aware: CRT televisions make use of very high voltages in their design. High as in enough to kill you! So don’t go poking around anyplace other than the main circuit board.