On a number of occasions I've taken a typical Embarco compressor from a box and moved it or handed it to a technician or whatever ... and if you handle it or shake it in just the right way you here a metallic noise that sounds like, for lack of a better description, a metal ball rolling around inside a metal ball. Many compressors. Whatever this is, if you've handled a compressor you've heard it.

Well, now I have a Whirlpool side by side (ED5RHAXNQ00) that makes that same noise from time to time. Easiest to hear at night when the house is quiet ... it makes the noise as the cooling system starts and then it goes away. Then back again a few minutes later for a second or two.

For YEARS I thought it sounded like the banging copper pipes make when they aren't tied down properly until I suddenly realized that it was this metallic compressor noise that I so poorly described.

It's not a fan noise, it's not a blade hitting a housing or a bearing noise .. this is that deeper metallic clanging. Knocking/clanging for a time and then fading in volume until it's gone ...

Is that a sign of the compressor failing? For a week it was getting louder *and* lasting longer each time the unit started.

Then Monday I started looking to see lead times on compressors ... and we haven' heard the noise since.

Any thoughts?