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OK, the second main control board went in Sunday night after a thorough 24-hour manual defrost. As of just now, I'm seeing 12F in the center of the freezer side and 44F in the lower portion of the fridge side. Something's still not right.
Seems to me the cooling system is working. But I'm not feeling much of anything in the way of airflow. The fan on top of the evaporator coil is definitely running but just doesn't seem to be moving much air. I feel absolutely nothing coming through the vent between the freezer and fridge compartments, and the damper there is wide open.
What in the devil is wrong with this thing? I don't know what's left to replace. Is there a way to test the evaporator fan? Is the fact that it's spinning at all sufficient evidence that it's not a problem?
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Either you have ice blockage, or the evaporator fan is running backwards. The fan blade only blows air one way, if in backwards, or the motor is running backwards, it will blow little air.
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I can't imagine ice blockage being a possibility. On several occasions since this all started, I've let it manually defrost completely, most recently for 24 hours.
Is it possible for the evaporator fan to suddenly reverse direction? I know it's not in backwards because I've never removed it. Also, seems to me it used to speed up at times and was noisier, but I haven't heard it do that lately.
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OK, I think this is a significant clue. I removed the two screws holding the evaporator fan cover in place and pulled it up just enough to access the fan. The fan was moving, albeit not too fast. I touched the fan to see which way it was going, and it was indeed blowing upwards as it should. BUT when I let go of the fan, it didn't move. I thumped it lightly to get it moving, and this time it cranked up MUCH faster. Bad fan motor?
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Yes, I would replace the evaporator fan motor, but before you do that, check the voltage to it per the Gene's comments in the sticky above for these GE motherboard fridg's.
If the motor is really bad, it probably damaged the new motherboard! Check for burnt resistors on the motherboard.
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Rank: Member
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I'm waiting on everything to warm up so I can do the full check per Gene's instructions, but I went ahead and pulled the evap fan out to check resistance. Where he says I should get at least 1k ohm, I'm only seeing ~500. Pretty reliable indicator of a bad/shorted evap fan?
Fortunately I don't see any burnt resistors on the new control board. I checked closely and it looks perfect on both sides. I'll order a new evap fan and hope for the best. (Probably will order a defrost thermostat as well, since they're fairly cheap, just so I can say I've replaced everything! Sheesh...)
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I have 13 VDC (actually 13.5) from both white to red and white to yellow on the evap fan plug.
From what I understand, this along with the resistance check on the fan itself confirms that I have a bad fan—correct?
And the voltage readings also mean the main control board is OK—correct?
I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere...
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This is a six pole induction motor, one set of pins must have a square wave on it, 13 volts peak, 6.5 volts rms. Without the square wave, the motor will not run.I would replace both the motherboard and the motor, otherwise you will have problems. Usually, you will have a burnt resistor on the motherboard showing a evaporator motor load problem.
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Rank: Member
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Even though I've now replaced the motherboard twice? The first time, thinking the original motherboard was bad (and it was)... the second time, thinking the replacement they sent was defective?
I'm going to take my chances with one of these two new replacement boards being good. I can't afford to keep throwing motherboards at this thing.
I would recommend next time you come across a similar situation, you have the customer check the evap fan. No sense recommending they replace the board if a bad fan might be present which would kill the new board...
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Rank: Advanced Member
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We can only respond to the info we get, you said "I don't think I have a bad evaporator fan.... "
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