Our refrigerator quit working. It is not an electrical problem (lights work, ice & water dispensers work, etc.). The serviceman that came & looked at it said that he thought the compressor was no good and that it could also be a board problem. He did not run any diagnostic tests on the compressor or the board. He advised us to buy a new unit, and we did that.

However, we would like to fix the old unit (it is otherwise in A+ condition) and use it. Is there a way to determine exactly what is wrong (or to get someone to do that) so that I can decide whether or not to repair the unit?

We had been gone for a week. When we returned, the unit was warm and everything inside was thawed/melted. Because the smell wasn't very bad, we assume that the failure had occurred fairly recently - perhaps 2 or 3 days before. The unit was not making any noises - no hum, no clicks, nothing. Everything in the unit was working except the refrigeration, so it did not appear to be a general electrical problem. I unplugged, emptied and cleaned it, and left it to dry out overnight.

The next day I plugged it back in, but the situation had not changed. I called a local repairman in. He inspected the unit and told me that the compressor was bad. He also said that the circuit board could be bad, but that was a guess since he ran no diagnostics on it.