bump, anyone with advice?

That's your advice? Just remove the beeper and let the baffle motor continue to malfunction, as well as have the fridge and freezer repeatedly rise above their setpoints??

Hastily-given advice notwithstanding, I was able to repair the fridge with a $1.60 part from Radio Shack.

After scouring the web for occurrences of the control board's part number ("2307028" for KitchenAid and Kenmore, "W10219463" for Whirlpool), I was able to find different discussion threads and blog posts that make this component the subject of quite a bit of internet lore and notoriety. Whether the rumor that the factory responsible for making this part was destroyed by the Japanese tsunami is true or not, getting a new, replacement version is possible mostly only through e bay and those hoarding these boards are asking around $900, roughly ten times their original price. Other e bay vendors are offering a repair service specifically for this board, asking between $100 and $150, with an unspecified turn-around time.

A person in one thread stated he was able to fix his controller by simply replacing a suspect capacitor (marked "C4" on the board). It's a 220uF, 35V electrolytic capacitor, of which there are three on each unit. The top of C4, however, had a slightly bulging appearance on his board, and I noticed a similar appearance on mine. I figured replacing it was worth a try when faced with sending it off for a $100+ repair and who-knows-how-many days of down time. (This capacitor was also the topic of some internet lore; someone suggested that there had been an incident of industrial espionage in SE Asia around the time many of these boards were being produced, and someone had sabotaged the electrolyte solution that was used in the manufacture of one plant's capacitors.) Another blogger had tried this fix without success, although the issue with his board was a nonfunctioning compressor fan. After it returned from being serviced, he noted that they had simply replaced a $6 relay on the board.

Anyway, I got the proper replacement part from Radio Shack and fired up my soldering iron. The fridge has been running like new without issue ever since replacing the cap.

Hey guys,

It's not a tough thing to do. Beware, on some occasions the board cannot be repaired but most of the time, it's electrical and can be. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! We can walk you through the easy repairs.