Hello guys I am Jonathan,

I am trying to repair a GE side by side refrigerator that is proving to be a pain to deal with. For some time now I have been having to turn the unit off overnight because it would not defrost automatically. The fridge side would stay warm, even with the air flap completely open.


In the past, the unit leaked water when the Ice maker needed water so the ice maker is switched off. The Dispenser board has gone faulty and has not been working for a while.

Right now I am only interested in getting the freezer and refrigerator working properly. I may address the dispenser some other time, but it is unplugged from the main board, J4 input.

So here is what I have found so far.

I have confirmed that the defrost thermostat, and the heater is ok. The first time I checked it out, I took off the back panel inside the freezer and tested the components. The Heater has two elements which seem to be in series, and I read 83 or so ohms. The thermostat had continuity since it was covered in ice at the time.

I realized that there is an easier way to check the defrost heater/thermostat function. Rather than cutting them out to test, and splicing them back in if they were good, After finding the schematic diagram for this unit, I was able to determine that the wire that goes to Pin J9 on the board comes directly from the defrost heaters, which has the defrost thermostat in line with it, and then it connects to the neutral bus of the mains power.

By setting my meter to ohms, and putting one prob on the wire that goes to J9 and the other probe on the neutral pole at the power cord, I was able to see the 83 ohms of the defrost heaters..

I left the fridge off overnight, and repeated this check in the morning and it was an open circuit, indicating that the thermostat is working as it should.



So I ordered a new board from APP (WR55X10566), and I installed it Two days ago, and guess what.... No defrost cycle...

However I observed a few things. The fan in the back of the freezer use to have this constant speed to it before. After installing the new board, it seemed like it shifted into high gear! after a few hours cool air was being circulated into the fridge side and all seemed well, but then after two days i saw the usual frost on the back panel and knew it was not going into defrost.

can any one help:confused:

All info points to a bad defrost thermostat. I would order it here on this site.

That is a special thermostat that opens above 100 degrees, may be opening too soon causing incomplete defrost. Another item that can cause this is the evaporator thermistor clipped to the top of the evaporator.

Replace the parts I mentioned and it should work normally.