bsl, I couldn't find any metal oxide resistor with discoloration or obvious damage on the board. I also checked and tested most of them with the multitester - so time consuming lah. But I found a wirewound one at the corner of the board, which should be 0.1 ohm (it's clearly printed on the side of the resistor as 0.1 Ω, 2W), but measures 1.1 ohm instead. I'm assuming that this is not normal and will replace it to see if it is the cause of the problem. If the board still doesn't come back to life, the hunt continues.... okay, no more Sony TV stuff in a T-amp thread, sorry about that folks.

Back to the discussion again. I'm not talking about heat levels which exceed the limits stated on the caps - going above those will likely cause immediate and premature death, which is a different issue. I'm pointing out that in most electrical components, the reason why there is a limit to the life span is that any component will invariably deteriorate from heat (it doesn't even have to be exceedingly high temperatures) damage over its working life. If a component could be run in a constantly cooler environment (even a few degrees lower can make a difference), it will average a longer life span, all other factors being equal. How much longer it would last is also dependent on the manufacturers' design specs and the actual quality/tolerance of the materials used, of course.

Y.C., I also believe it is true that electrical components do suffer from `initiation shock' (my term for this phenomena), but not all components equally, and not under all circumstances. For example, I think that switching off equipment if one is going to turn it on again to use within a few minutes quite a worthless practice. But keeping equipment powered up for days without using it is also, in my books, a futile action. The grey area is in that period of an hour up to perhaps overnight. Here, the benefits and drawbacks of either practice (leave powered on , or not) can be debated endlessly.

This discussion is theoretical, by the way, and I hope you don't feel I'm being scornful of various opinions expressed. I'm just going into my `curiousity-kills-the-cat' mode when I indulge in these kinds of discussions.