Any appliance repair experts here?

[duneslider]

I have an older GE side by side fridge in my garage. Its been a pretty solid unit. I did have to replace the defroster sensor/heat lamp a couple years ago but other than that no issues until last week.

I mainly use it for drinks and a little bit of overflow from the house fridge.

Last Sunday I got a drink out and the fridge was nice and cold. I went out monday morning to get some ice before leaving from work and the fridge wasn't running and was warming up. I didn't have time to deal with it then but by the time I got home it was room temp inside the fridge. Power was on, just zero cooling and compressor was not running. I suspected the control board. I slid it out checked the board and everything seemed fine based on my limited appliance repair skills. I unplugged the fridge and pulled the board out and gave it a closer inspection and still didn't see any apparent issues. Put it all back together and plugged it in and it started up and started cooling. It has been cooling great for a week now.

I cleaned the coils a couple months ago so no obstructions there.

Any ideas on what could be wrong? Is it possible for "something" to overheat and then start working again after a reset? It does get pretty warm in the garage, upper 80's right now with it 100 outside. Air flow is pretty good around it but I assume it isn't designed to operate in an area this hot?

 

[CN Spots]

Was the freezer side still cold and how long was it unplugged? My defrost element used to burn out on mine about every 6 months causing the coils to freeze solid. The fridge would then warm up but the freezer would stay cold. I could unplug it and let it thaw for a few hours and it was good for about another week before it froze up again.

Element was about 20 bucks. Pretty easy repair.

 

[duneslider]

Was the freezer side still cold and how long was it unplugged? My defrost element used to burn out on mine about every 6 months causing the coils to freeze solid. The fridge would then warm up but the freezer would stay cold. I could unplug it and let it thaw for a few hours and it was good for about another week before it froze up again.

Element was about 20 bucks. Pretty easy repair.

Nope, this wasn't like when the defrost element went out. By the time I got home from work all the ice in the freezer side had melted and leaked out. Compressor and fan were NOT running. I only unplugged it a couple minutes max, just long enough to pull the control board out and give it a visual inspection on both sides. All capacitors "looked" good, I didn't bother putting the meter on them since they looked fine.

 

[SweetD]

Not sure on your particular model, but I have had great success on typing your make and model number into YouTube along with your symptom(s). Trying to keep 20+ YO appliances running in our kitchen, constant troubleshooting and repair, but usually with great success!

 

[Milton Shaw]

Look at the wire connector at the bottom of the freezer door. If water gets in that it can confuse/short the board and turn the frig off. Since you have it in a garage it's likely to have condensation around that connector. As weird as this sounds when they first came out with those models, the membrane switches were sensitive enough that a high pressure weather system could trigger the switches and turn the whole frig off. That took a lot of time to finally isolate the problem and the membrane switches were then ventilated to prevent that happening. Those 20 year old frigs had so many new parts that strange problems cropped up for years after they came out. Biggest problems were with defrost heaters only on the narrow freezer models. They eventually redesigned them with double elements on both heaters that fixed that rapid burnout problem. That series of refigs was a complete clean sheet of paper design, nothing carried over from previous 50 years experience and a lot of new problems cropped up just like it did with first GM front wheel cars in the early 80's

 

[duneslider]

Look at the wire connector at the bottom of the freezer door. If water gets in that it can confuse/short the board and turn the frig off. Since you have it in a garage it's likely to have condensation around that connector. As weird as this sounds when they first came out with those models, the membrane switches were sensitive enough that a high pressure weather system could trigger the switches and turn the whole frig off. That took a lot of time to finally isolate the problem and the membrane switches were then ventilated to prevent that happening. Those 20 year old frigs had so many new parts that strange problems cropped up for years after they came out. Biggest problems were with defrost heaters only on the narrow freezer models. They eventually redesigned them with double elements on both heaters that fixed that rapid burnout problem. That series of refigs was a complete clean sheet of paper design, nothing carried over from previous 50 years experience and a lot of new problems cropped up just like it did with first GM front wheel cars in the early 80's

Interesting, so the fact that it sat for a day and then unplugging it for a bit and plugging back in turned it back on would indicate nothing was actually wrong with it, just turned itself off and needed a "reset"?

 

[Milton Shaw]

Strange things happen on systems with computers. That's why the first repair is always try a reboot. Over the years I have seen very strange problems with appliances fixed by just a reboot long enough to clear memory chips on boards. Stoves that ovens only would broil regardless of what setting, dishwashers that would not advance cycle, dead completely all fixed with just power off for a couple of minutes. Some boards will hold power for several minutes and would not reset with just plug and unplug. For instance if the internal clock was not powered off enough to need setting then the computer didn't reset. I have a microwave that power blinks, clock has to be reset. Another stove that takes 3 or 4 minutes without power to need to reset the clock. The refrig could have just needed reset, but moisture in connectors will affect the boards until dried out.

 

[LXCam]

Defrost timer?