My fridge is about 3 years old, and yesterday I noticed the trim between the french doors seemed to be hot (or hotter than usual). Today the fridge stopped cooling; it will only get down to about 65 if I leave the doors closed. Also, the freezer seems to be frosting up, particularly on the back wall over what appear to be vent holes.
I read another post that mentioned the problem lies in the defrost system, possibly the defrost timer or other related parts. I checked the parts diagram for my model and can’t find any part with the name "defrost".
Possibly have a bad control, an easy test of this is to turn the unit off at the control. It should read " - - ". Listen to the unit. If you can hear the compressor running after 45 seconds or so tap on the bottom of the control. if this turns the compressor off then you have a bad relay on the control itself.
to remove control you’ll have to remove the light cover and stick a flat blade screwdriver into the tabs behind control housing and push towards the front of the unit and pull down on control panel at same time, should pop out. disconnect wires and remove board. Install new board making sure buttons line up with cutouts. reconnect wiring and reassemble control housing.
Follow instructions that come with board to program new control. The code that you will need to put in is on the model/serial tag and will be 4 digits. (0104 as an example)
Also you’ll have to defrost unit in order for it to start cooling again. just turn off for at least 12 hours.
Thanks for the quick reply! I shut the unit off at the control, and the compressor immediately turned off, so I don’t think it’s that part. Also, last night I was able to get most of the frost off the back of the freezer; I had it open so long some of it melted, and by tapping on the back panel more of it fell away. I set the freezer at it’s lowest (warmest) setting and the fridge at it’s highest then went to bed. This morning, the fridge was 34 degrees, and all the frost in the freezer was gone. I also noticed, unlike last night, cold air coming in through the damper in the fridge.
I don’t think it’s fixed now, but does this info help pinpoint a faulty part?
You might have a defrost issue than. Possibly a bad thermostat. you will have to remove the rear cover of the freezer and test the thermostat with a multimeter set to continuity. If the freezer has been running for awhile it should read closed.