I have a toshiba 37" crt and the picture blacks out and the power light flashes until I guess it gets warmed up enough and suddenly after like five minutes starts to work fine. And I've done some diy things before, like soldered my old ps and such and I'm interested in trying to fix my crt myself. But once opened how will I know what's causing the problem?
If you have no experience in fixing TVs your chances are slim to none unless you want to "cherry pick" and replace parts, which will be a time consuming and expensive proposition. Not only are CRT TVs an expensive proposition to fix, there are potentially lethal voltages (present even when the TV is unplugged) that make this unsuitable for a first time repair project. Without a schematic or repair manual (and the ability to read a schematic properly) you may as well call the repair shop now or just toss it since the cost of repair is likely to exceed or be close to the purchase of a new LCD TV. If I were to guess just based on your symptoms it's probably the power supply module.