Mentch,

You do have a multi meter ?

With the cold control turned off, you should read an Open(No resistance) circuit across the two terminals on the control.

With the cold control turned on, you should read a closed(infinite resistance) circuit across the two terminals, using the lowest resistance range on your meter(RX1, RX2,RX100, etc.)

You may also want to lightly wiggle the control knob shaft, during both tests, to see if you have a loose,intermittent contact in the switch.

As for the snapping noise, is it only when the compressor shuts off, there are no snapping noises when the compressor starts ?

You've got me wanderring, if you've got a weak or loose start relay/overload on the compressor versus a bad cold control ?

If your cold control circuits check OK, that would be the next component to check, based on the information you're giving.

Good Luck,
:) :) :)

First of all, why are you wondering it is the thermostat. Is the whole refrigerator dead? If so, unplug the refrigerator, and take the 2 wires that go to the thermostat, and put the terminal ends together, and put some tape around it, to keep them together, and to be sure they don't hit metal, and then plug it in, and see if the refrigerator comes on. If that is not the case, give us more detail. Tom ApplianceEducator.com

Definitely a electrical kind of snapping noise when it does shut off, not a mechanical clunk or bang.

I will roll the frig out and check to see it's thoroughly clean. I do have large dogs in the house, could be pet hair but I would think the two techs would have checked for that problem. I wasn't here when the first guy came and the second guy double checked everything the first guy did. He's the one that suggested the "controller" was going bad. I'm guessing he meant the thermostat, that's why I checked it out last night.
You mentioned checking the frost pattern on the freezer coils. This refrig is a totally separate unit from the freezer so that will have nothing to do with it's operation. The first tech said it is definitely not low on freon. He put a dye in and checked for leaks and found none.

I did ask the second tech about the door seals. He said they looked good.

The control dial always turns the fan on and off so I'm guessing I don't need to splice the two wires together to further test the thermostat.

The techs were both from A&E Factory Service so I'm hoping they're competent enough.

So I rolled the frig out and everything is nice and clean. I removed the shelves and back panel from inside. The fan is running fine, as I thought I could hear before, and there is frost building on the coils. Could this be an intermittent problem with the start relay or temp control that causes it to not cool all the time? The tech mentioned the temp control can get out of calibration, is that possible? How would I test the start relay?

Yesterday I posted that my frig was building frost on the coils and seemed to be getting colder. Today it's very warm with the control set at #6 for about 24 hours. I again removed the back panel and there's now no frost. I turned the control off for a minute or two then back on starting at #2 and almost immeadately it started building frost. WTF?

I also called A&E Factory Service again to let them know it still wasn't working even after two of their techs worked on it and the next available appt is seven days from now. Good customer service, not! All my food is now out in my garage frig for the next week unless I can fix this myself.