Aloha,

We have a 2011 Frigidaire Refrigerator that is not keeping the fridge below 50F. Freezer seems normal. After reading some of the "How to's" I assumed it was the evaporator fan with some brief basic trouble shooting. The new fan came in from AppliencePartsPros, and I replaced the old one. However, the new one didn't seem to work. I was fooled by the freezer door switch... So now I have two working fans because I didn't realize the freezer door switch controlled the lights and the fan.

I cleaned out the condenser coil, lots of pet hair and dust. I also observe frost on the evaporator but not enough to cause any blockage for the fan to move cold air. I've downloaded a repair manual and went through the test parameters that I thought were relevant, with little insight of what the issue might be. The service mode does start with -88*e with all the lights on. I'm assuming this is not a cryptic error message but just a test to see if all the display lights come on.

So where do I go from here?

Thermistor? The control panel seems to read 60F (I have an internal thermometer that reads 50F) I would think if it was reading high I would have the opposite problem with the fridge too cold.

Automatic Damper? I can hear it doing something in the self test, but I will confirm physically.

Control Board not working? It seems this is the last thing to replace, as it is suggested that it is the most misdiagnosed part.

Do I have a leak in the sealed system and I just don't have enough cooling capacity?

Any advise would be greatly welcomed!

This morning the freezer was at 0 F and fridge at 36 F. Yeah!!! or at least we thought so... This afternoon we are back to 50 F in the fridge and 14 F in the freezer. I check to see if we have a evaporator fan running. Affirmative. Look to see if there is excessive frost on the evaporator coil. Nope. The compressor is hot. Yep. So what is the problem...

So bear with me as I suggest another Hypothesis... I was feeling kinda lucky this morning when the fridge was at 36 F. Yesterday, I was confirming the thermistor resistance, I noticed that three of the four light bulbs were suddenly burned out in the fridge after I took it apart. Didn't think anything other than me touching or damaging them when I was removing the interior parts of the fridge to extract the thermistor from the back wall to test it. Anyway, I stopped at the hardware store this afternoon to pick up new bulbs. I installed the bulbs and immediately noticed the fridge and freezer starting to get warmer. So... I placed my iPhone in the fridge and filmed a movie for over a minute. After I shut the door, guess what, the lights never shut off. It then occurred to me that the lights have this dimming effect when you shut or open the door. I haven't seen the dimming effect the last few days. Perhaps the problem is I have four 25 W bulbs heating up the fridge 24/7... I'm thinking "Easy Bake Oven" inside!

Now, I would like to know where is the light switch is located on this french door fridge?

Any thoughts on the fridge lights not shutting off is the cause of our warm fridge section and cool freezer problem?

Aloha,