Trinitron TV suddenly began not to turn on

Our very old Sony Trinitron TV began not turning on the other day. This was strange as the picture looks great and has had not other problems till now. At first if we were patient, we could turn it on after a while. There is a continuous red blinking light with the "standby-sleep" feature. Now when we plug it in it begins to make a lot of a sort of growling like noise-it seems like it is a capacitor that will not charge up all the way? Either that we can click the power button repeatedly and it sounds like it will either start up or almost start up. When it almost starts up it will make the the normal TV turn on sound but not actually turn on. It seems as if it is like something can almost "turn over" like an alternator, or as has been more frequent in the last couple of days, not turn over, like a part is slowly wearing out. I have read a lot of posts on many newsgroups, but they have been similar not the same problem. Perhaps someone can help? I do not have a volt meeter or a soldering iron, but I do have friends with these items.

Thank you.