My 5 year old Kenmore (253.6480240e) refrigerator hasn't been working right for awhile now. It kind of gradually happened in that the temperatures in the fridge have slowly gotten warmer (still cool enough to keep milk from spoiling). I mainly noticed the freezer sometimes wouldn't keep ice cream frozen.

But I later noticed that the refrigerator hadn't been running for hours one day, although plugged in and fridge light on when door opened. I learned that the refrigerator might be stuck in defrost. The refrigerator had been making a ticking sound for well over a year. I never gave it much thought as it had always done that from time to time and I had read that it was the defrost timer and never looked into it further as the refrigerator had been fine at the time. After manually advancing the defrost timer with a screw driver, the refrigerator and compressor came right on.

However, the issue of the refrigerator not cooling still persisted. After doing some more research I learned that another sound I had been hearing for awhile - an occasional popping noise from under the refrigerator was not normal. I learned that sound was likely (and indeed was) coming from the starter.

Admittedly, I really have been quite ignorant with all this. I have since ordered (from this site) and installed a new defrost timer, starter and run capacitor. The refrigerator has been cooling fine, however I am still hearing occasional popping sounds coming from the brand new starter. Does anyone know why this could still be happening? I assume there is something wrong with the compressor.