Customer Support 7 days a week

Welcome Guest! You can not login or register.

Notification

Icon
Error

2 Pages12>
Options
Go to last post Go to first unread
flickf9234  
#1 Posted : Friday, July 7, 2017 6:03:48 PM(UTC)
flickf9234

Rank: Member

Groups: Registered
Joined: 7/7/2017(UTC)
Posts: 7

My husband and I have a 7 year old Samsung french door refrigerator with a drawer freezer. The fridge has worked awesome since day one, despite hearing how many people have had issues with their's. On Sunday morning, I was awakened by the fridge making a steady thumping noise that seemed to be coming from the top of the fridge cabinet and small spurts of water coming from the water dispenser. The control panel on the front was completely blank and when I opened the fridge and freezer compartments, there were no lights whatsoever and I could tell that everything was warmer than it should be. My husband had just gotten his lunch out for work just a few hours earlier and it was working absolutely fine. I'm leaning towards a bad control board which I don't mind replacing since the fridge has worked so well for us over the years but I want to make sure that's the problem before I tear it completely apart. Samsung has been less than helpful and I don't really want to spend the money on a tech to come out and tell me something I might be able to take care of myself. Thanks for the help!
Sponsor
See inside of your appliance - diagrams and part photos for virtually every model.

powered by AppliancePartsPros.com
 
PNWDrew  
#2 Posted : Friday, July 7, 2017 9:34:09 PM(UTC)
PNWDrew

Rank: Member

Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/2/2017(UTC)
Posts: 422

Sounds like you are right, the noise is probably the water valve opening and closing as the board resets. It'll be the main board probably, not the front display. There's 2 boards on the back, the main and the inverter, my guess is the main is repeatedly resetting. There's some question left as to why it is resetting, but it may just be internally failing.

Samsung DA41-00620B Pba MAIN;09 Aw Tim-Pj - AppliancePartsPros.com
flickf9234  
#3 Posted : Wednesday, July 12, 2017 9:29:23 AM(UTC)
flickf9234

Rank: Member

Groups: Registered
Joined: 7/7/2017(UTC)
Posts: 7

I finally got the chance to pull off the back panel and despite everything looking fine on the board I'm still leaning towards that being my problem. I plugged it back in to see if it would do anything and it remains silent and the only thing it does is the lights above the dispenser are flashing. Zero power evidenced anywhere else and no noise, no fan, no display panel, nothing. I did find a fuse and look at it and it seems completely normal. My only worry is if I buy a board and that doesn't fix it. My local parts store won't let me return it if it doesn't fix the problem.
PNWDrew  
#4 Posted : Wednesday, July 12, 2017 10:01:10 AM(UTC)
PNWDrew

Rank: Member

Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/2/2017(UTC)
Posts: 422

If you want to be a little more adventurous you can try disconnecting plugs 1 by 1 on the mainboard and see if anything changes. I'd start with the high voltage circuits which will be the thicker wires. Unplug the machine between tries.

The downside of doing that is that you will probably generate error codes due to the unplugged parts if the board is able to power up. The up the upside is that it may tell you that there is a shorted-out component elsewhere causing the problem. I will take a look at a wiring diagram and see if I can help you identify what goes where because I do not think that Samsung labels their boards with anything other than a plug number.

You would want to check with this site first but I believe their parts are returnable. In many cases local shops will not accept returns on electrical parts as they cannot test them and many people will attempt that scam when it comes to a $300 board. Often people immediately replace the main control board as soon as anything goes wrong and are not correct.
PNWDrew  
#5 Posted : Wednesday, July 12, 2017 10:21:29 AM(UTC)
PNWDrew

Rank: Member

Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/2/2017(UTC)
Posts: 422

Sorry about the split, it was illegible if not enlarged.
Try pulling the AC plugs labeled CN72 to 74 on left bottom one at a time (while unplugged) and see what happens. The board has what they called an inrush protection circuit that is designed to avoid damage to the board when it is first pluggeg in. It may be that a shorted component triggers that circuit.

UserPostedImage
UserPostedImage
flickf9234  
#6 Posted : Wednesday, July 12, 2017 1:05:36 PM(UTC)
flickf9234

Rank: Member

Groups: Registered
Joined: 7/7/2017(UTC)
Posts: 7

I just had a dummy moment. While checking the boards, I finally realized it had a LED bulb that flashed twice. According to the chart on the back of my refrigerator it is a defective inverter PCB. Does this mean I need to replace the whole upper board?
PNWDrew  
#7 Posted : Wednesday, July 12, 2017 1:12:49 PM(UTC)
PNWDrew

Rank: Member

Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/2/2017(UTC)
Posts: 422

That is probably your issue then. You can try disconnecting that board from the main board and seeing if other functions return. If so that's it. If I was looking at it I would connect everything properly and it might be worth also disconnecting the plug that goes down to the compressor from the inverter board to verify that the compressor isn't the actual problem.
flickf9234  
#8 Posted : Wednesday, July 12, 2017 1:14:38 PM(UTC)
flickf9234

Rank: Member

Groups: Registered
Joined: 7/7/2017(UTC)
Posts: 7

I'll give that a try! Thank you so very much for the help. I'll let you know what happens.
flickf9234  
#9 Posted : Thursday, July 13, 2017 4:53:27 AM(UTC)
flickf9234

Rank: Member

Groups: Registered
Joined: 7/7/2017(UTC)
Posts: 7

I unplugged everything from the board and not a single thing started working, just the lights above the dispenser flashing again. After unplugging it from the outlet and connecting everything again I plugged it into the outlet again and sat there for a while to see if the compressor at least got hot. It didn't but after a few minutes it did starting making the noise again. Whatever it is it is strong enough to shake the entire fridge and it seems to come from the top of the fridge rather than the bottom. It's getting extremely frustrating.
PNWDrew  
#10 Posted : Thursday, July 13, 2017 5:59:24 AM(UTC)
PNWDrew

Rank: Member

Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/2/2017(UTC)
Posts: 422

Darn. I thought we had it with that inverter code.
I can't think of anything up high on that unit that would make that much noise unless it is just the water valve opening and pressurizing the line going up to the water feed for the ice maker.

I don't usually like to tell people to consider replacing it because sometimes the fix is cheap enough that it would make more sense but I can understand the annoyance of this continual problem. Factor in the age of the machine and you may want to consider either simply replacing it or calling a repair person.

I will give it some thought today in my free time. Perhaps lightning will strike and I'll have a good idea.
Users browsing this topic
2 Pages12>
Forum Jump  
You can post new topics in this forum.
You can reply to topics in this forum.
You can delete your posts in this forum.
You can edit your posts in this forum.
You cannot create polls in this forum.
You can vote in polls in this forum.