Hopefully it was micro lock-up........
BUT these sets had one fatal weak point. If yours is one it
uses 2 identical IC's. One in the STBY power supply & another
in the RUN power supply. They fail left & right.
Symptoms are dead set and or hard starting getting worse with time.
I had the 30" model & the 4th set went bad in 5 yrs. There was never a cure from Sony. The spare boards were all used up in < a year IIRC.
Fix is to replace BOTH IC's & install IC sockets so you can swap
them fast next time. One last thing is to watch out for bootleg IC's.
Ask around for advice before ordering any.
Good luck with the set. IMHO it had the best pix on any set ever.
I sure miss mine.....
73 Zeno
LFOD !