My approximately 1 3/4 year old Sony 34XBR970 has developed a severe
flash / screen popping issue - occurs about every 30 seconds to 1 minute.
It produces an electrical popping sound from inside the set and a flash on the screen. It lasts about a fraction of a second. While standing close to the screen, I can feel a "blast" of radiation when this happens. The picture is fine. This is annoying and I fear it is damaging the set. I have a surge protector and I know it is not a reception issue. It is definitely getting worse. I guess I better call Sony service before my 2 year limited warranty expires.

Anyone have any suggestions, i.e., plug & unplug? (I did notice my apartment had the polarity of the power wires coming out of the wall reversed - which I recently corrected.)

This sounds like high voltage arcing. A common source of this is arcing around the anode cap on the crt. Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isNMmENHbgE&NR=1) is an example of what it looks and sounds like. Most of the time, the arcing is due to a build up of dust around the cap or a breakdown of the insulation. The anode on your set is at the top, so you can look through the top of the set and you may see the arcing as it happens.

It sure does sound like a high voltage arcing and you want to quit using the set before it destroys something important in the set or worse. The only way to fix this is to figure out where the arc is occuring and fix it. That is probably best left to a tech unless you know your way around HV.

This is bringing back flash backs of adjusting the astig magnetics on my Barco CRT projector which had to be done while it was operational and my hands were inches from 36,000 volts.

Thank you for the replies. I can see bluish / white light flashing from within the inside, back of the T V set when this happens. Time to call Service. I'll let you know what is the cause and the fix.