Since I don't know what is relevant and what is not, I'll include all information I have --I recently purchased a house and the seller included the refrigerator, so I don't know much about it/when it was purchased, etc.

About a month ago, the water/ice from the in-door filter tasted bad-- kind of like "old" water.

This week there has been a foul odor in the fridge (don't know if it was present in the freezer as well, as I had no food in there). It smelled like spoiling or rotting food, which was not the case as all of the food in the fridge was less than a week old.

Yesterday there was a puddle on the floor in front of the fridge. The ice in the bin had started to melt and drip down the shelves/door and this is what seemed to cause the puddle.

I took out the ice bin, and no more puddles formed, but neither the fridge or the freezer (it's a side-by-side) are cooling anymore.

Can anyone help pick through the "symptoms" and give me some things to check before I call a repairman?

-Ryu

its possible the compressor was going bad or freon was leaking out causing the coils in the freezer section to be only partially frosted. with ice already in the freezer that would help mask the symptoms of a bad compressor because of the cool air that would circulate from the ice. you will want to open the freezer door and take the shelves out and remove the screws holding the back of the freezer wall on - peel back that metal (it covers the coils) and take a look - if you see frost only on a small portion of those coils then there is either a freon leak or the compressor has a problem. if there is no frost at all on the coils then it could possibly be a start relay that has gone bad but most likely it is leaking freon or has a bad compressor.