unfortunatly you can't make water freeze faster than it will freeze so you can't do alot to speed things up. this ice maker reads through a thermostat at the front of the mould, and the water must be at a low enough temp to cause the ice maker to cycle, about the only way to speed up operation is to lower the temp in the freezer, but this wont speed the operation by much.as far as checking operation, you can manualy advance the ice maker by jumpering m-n. hope this helps