Where theres smoke...

This AWA DVD Micro system has decided to send up smoke signals at power up!
A quick disassembly of the cover and careful application of power soon identified the source. Turns out it's the (Inverter) supply to the LCD backlight.

A call to (Telefix) AWA service and an email with a picture (above) of the suspect part soon got an availability and pricing response. The surprise here is that a relatively small part which costs less than $20, cost $22 to "freight", puzzling!
Before committing to order a replacement a cautious reassessment of the (observational) diagnosis is called for:

1. It appears that the board is faulty, only by the fact that smoke and heat damage are apparent.
2. However, what if the LCD backlight (which still appears to function - screen active during P.O.S.T.) is actually faulty and overloading the Inverter, causing overheating and smoke, but perhaps, so far not terminally damaging the board?
3. So, we need to reassemble the board and it's connections, save for the feed to the LCD backlight, then reapply the power and see if we still have heat and smoke...