27 inch Zenith with dark picture

[jim37]

I have a 27 inch Zenith, tube, that's about 7 or 8 years old, several years it wasn't used. Anyways, ever since this tv was new, the picutre was relatively dark, and the brightness control didn't seem to have much affect, only slight. Now the TV is watchable in a dark room, but you almost have to strain your eyes. I've turned up the adjustment on the flyback to almost it's max position to increase the brightness. If you turn it up all the way, it seems like the picture washes out. Anyways, adjusting the flyback didn't seem to make it bright enough to watch. I'm suspecting that the tube is defective. Although, since this was a bit of a problem since day 1 from when the tv was brand new, could there be something else that would casue this?

[minnie]

If screen doesn't adjust it to a watchable level, I would say yes the tube is bad unless you have a brightness limiter problem. What's the model?

[jim37]

model number is A27B33W

By the way, turning the adjustment on the flyback did make a bit of a difference, but the picture is still to dark to watch in a lighted room.

[jim37]

Another symptom that i noticed with this tv is that when channels are changed, it seems like the picture bounces or shutters for a few seconds before it stablizes. I'm not sure if that's a separate issue or related. The channel display shutters with the picture...but I did notice that the menu display does not shutter.

I'm still thinking that this TV is going to hit the scrap heep. It's only been used about 3 or 4 years, noticed on the sticker that it was made in 98 and it sat in the box for a few years. So would hate to get rid of it if the problem is something other than the CRT.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.