[samsquamch]

I have a GE Profile Arctica (Model:PTS25LBMARWW) that has stopped staying cold. I vacuumed out the condenser coils (it has the squirrel cage style - cylinder of coils with the fan on the end) as they were extremely caked with dust and lint. Plug it in, seems to work fine. Fridge and freezer cool down to reasonable temperatures (about 38 and 0 respectively) then the fan shuts off and it warms back up. It doesn't kick back on and keep it at temperature. Unplug it, let it sit, plug it back in, same thing happens. Sounds like a thermostat issue to me except, how is it accurately deciding when to shut off at 38 and 0 if the thermostat isn't functioning? On top of that, I have no idea where to begin looking for the thermostat itself as I have no idea where anything is and no manual. I'd appreciate any suggestions or help anyone might have to help me fix it! I haven't been able to locate a service manual and based on the searching I've done, it sounds like this model probably has a lot of components integrated into the mainboard and that seems like an expensive place to start.

Thank you!

[rickgburton]

Replace the motherboard and that will fix it.

[richappy]

The motherboard is the most probable problem. To confirm, I would pull out the motherboard and look for bad solder connections in back of the big power relay.

[samsquamch]

Thanks, guys. Did some searching on that mainboard and it turns out it has been recalled. Called GE and they won't give me a new one (after much discussion) because my unit is too old. However, that same board is used in many GE appliances and I found people posting that GE sent them a new one for their application as recently as August of last year. I'll inspect the board for anything obvious particularly the relay.

Just for my own curiosity, do you know how it is able to kick on the compressor when I first plug it in but not thereafter if it is a relay problem? Thanks for the help! I'll post my solution if I find it.

[rickgburton]

That's because it's probably not a solder connection but a bad IC chip. richappy must have been bored with nothing to do so he said check a solder connection. Even if there was a bad solder joint it's best to replace the board and not try to repair it.