[mmalone2]

How do you force a manual defrost on a fridge with a control board. I have a GE GSS22JFMC side by side. No owners manual.

[Gene]

As far as I know there is no way to do it.

What is the original problem with your fridge?

Gene.

[mmalone2]

The original problem was the coil in the freezer iced up. I wanted to put it in to defrost so I could check the heater and the defrost thermostat.

[Gene]

You can check the defrost heater and the defrost thermostat for continuity. Both of them should be closed (the defrost thermostat must be cold at the test time).

Gene.

[richappy]

You can manually force defrost. Remove the back metal panel to expose the motherboard and unplug the power plug on the bottom left. Stick a jumper between the J11 and J 8 connector pins. The pc board will have these pins labeled. Now plug in fridg. The defrost heater will now draw current, if yes, you probably have a bad motherboard item # 801. They also recommend to also replace the freezer thermister. If not, you have a bad defrost heater or thermostat. Very common for the heater to fail on these.