You might have a refrigerant leak or a bad condensing fan motor or evaporator motor.
Verify both motors are running, if so, remove the back panel in the freezer and check the frost pattern. If tottaly frosted, you have a defrost problem, if partially frosted, you either have a refrigerant leak or a bad compressor.
Follow up: I took the evaporator coil cover off this morning. The fan was running, but the coil was frozen solid. After running my wife’s hair dryer for an hour and a half, the coil was clean and dry. Freezer temp’s down to 2 degrees and dropping. Problem solved (unless it freezes up again.)
Go ahead richappy. All yours dude. Tom
[quote=RB47;85445]
I have an Eterna model # ESS25XGMB CC, serial # HA 266281. The freezer is not cold enough (currently about 12 degrees F) and the vegetables in the bottom bin of the refrigerator compartment are frozen. The refrigerator (compressor?) is running constantly.
Follow up: I took the evaporator coil cover off this morning. The fan was running, but the coil was frozen solid. After running my wife’s hair dryer for an hour and a half, the coil was clean and dry. Freezer temp’s down to 2 degrees and dropping. Problem solved (unless it freezes up again.)[/quote]
OK, I have a defrost problem. The evaporator coil freezes up every couple weeks and requires manual defrosting. I followed the troubleshooting guide at [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3][COLOR=#0000ff]acmehowto.com - How To Fix a Refrigerator[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]. The defrost heater appears to be good (resistance = 22 ohms). I can’t measure the resistance of the defrost thermistor or defrost thermostat because they are hard wired into the wiring harnesses and I can’t trace the wires to the plug without major disassembly. By then the thermostat is warm and may be properly open. Is there any way to test resistance of these components at the motherboard? Is there a wiring diagram available anywhere? (Couldn’t find one behind the toe grill or anywhere else on the fridge.)
Remove the cover of the motherboard, unplug the 4 pin power connector, and stick a jumper between the line pin and def. pin as printed on the motherboard. If you now get defrost current as measured on the jumper, you have a bad motherboard AP4297272. If no current, probably a bad defrost thermostat.
There is a schematic in the “sticky” above with the South Jersey group I found that you can refer to.
This is the "manual defrost initiaton proceedure.
[quote=richappy;107693]Remove the cover of the motherboard, unplug the 4 pin power connector, and stick a jumper between the line pin and def. pin as printed on the motherboard. If you now get defrost current as measured on the jumper, you have a bad motherboard AP4297272. If no current, probably a bad defrost thermostat.
There is a schematic in the “sticky” above with the South Jersey group I found that you can refer to.[/quote]
Rich, Excuse my caution, but I don’t want to make a dumb mistake and fry something. With the connector unplugged, do I jumper between the pins on the motherboard or between the corresponding contacts on the connector? (Without a wiring diagram, I’m flying blind.)
I found the “junk GE GSS20IEMbww new motherboard” thread, but the schematic seems to have been removed. There’s a red X in post #8 where it used to be. Is there another way to get this schematic?
You unplug the connector from the board and jumper the connector pins I mentioned.
I entered the Fixit now Samurai site and found the schematic no longer available, sorry. Good news is they have had good reliability with thermistors on these refrigerators, so you probably will have little trouble.Post back if you do
For the GE GS and PS models and all ones with the AP4297272 motherboard with damper door problems.
I believe the damper is controled by a simple on/off application of voltage cycling on the thermistor resistance.So, in normal operation, the door will open and close periodically.If the fridge is very warm, the door will remain open till the fridg. gets down to the control setting temperature.Precise control of the fridg. temperature is done by control of the fan speed; higher frequency, more airflow, lower frequency, less airflow. All thermisters are the same; 65kohm=-
-13 degrees, 12kohm=+40 degrees, 5kohm=+75 degrees. These are just typical readings. You can measure these at the J1 connector of the motherboard, upper right. Measure between common J1-pin5 and either J1-1 fresh food, J1-2 fresh food, J1-3 freezer and J1-4 evaporator, used to terminate defrost.
If your thermisters are reading close to these sort of normal values and the damper door remains open, or closed, and the damper motor is not blown out, you probably have a bad motherboard. The 12 volt dc motor resistances are red- yellow 430 ohm, blue-white 430 ohm. If either of these are shorted or way low in value, you will need to also buy a new damper assembly as it will blow out the motherboard. To check the motherboard output voltages to the damper, go to the upper middle connector J3. Measure between J3-1 and J3-2, then between J3-3 and J3-4 should be around 12 volts.
The South Jersey schematic was scubbed off the Samurai site, only available to pros, just refer to your service schematic. If it is missing, contact me for pin info.
[quote=richappy;108370]You unplug the connector from the board and jumper the connector pins I mentioned.
I entered the Fixit now Samurai site and found the schematic no longer available, sorry. Good news is they have had good reliability with thermistors on these refrigerators, so you probably will have little trouble.Post back if you do[/quote]
Rich, Thanks for your help. The evaporator thermistor is bad. Resistance is 1.5 Kohms, while the freezer thermistor is just under 50 kohms. Glad it isn’t the motherboard.
BTW, I finally found the wiring diagram - inside the temperature control panel in the refrigerator compartment. Nobody suggested looking there until I talked with GE Customer Service again yesterday.
Very good work, I appreciate the feedback, you solved a “difficult” problem.
And I again thank the South Jersey group for publishing the info and schematic; this publication and customer complaints forced GE to include the schematic in future refrigerators.
I have learned a good test for this refrigerator encoder (fridg./freezer control).
If the fridg. fails to run, you might have a bad encoder that sends digital signals to the motherboard.
Just unplug the encoder, the motherboard will automatically go to the default levels of 0 and 36 degrees for freezer and fridg. and will operate till a new encoder can be put in.
I have a GE GSS25XGNABB.
Similar problems as others. Freezer is only getting to 20 degrees, coils are frosting, icemaker isn’t working properly, and my fan is not running. Is there any way to test the fan with a 9v battery? I tried testing the fan plug with my cheap multimeter, but I wasn’t getting any of the voltages or ohms listed. I don’t know if it’s my mother board or just my cheap meter. Also, I have the 6 pin connector. Across one side is red/white stripe, blue, yellow/black stripe. The other side is white, white/grey strip, red. Which of these should I be checking voltage across? Can I double check that my fan does work before paying for a new motherboard?
Thanks,
Josh
Best to just replace both the evaporator fan motor and the motherboard at the same time. Bad evaporator motors burn out the motherboard.
i get truble with GE for general refrigerators special that one with control board
my question is
1- if any one can know how can you to check that control board if its good or not
2-what it’s that Temperature sensor or that monted beside the evaporat coil in the bottom corner
for what if that bad what it’s cause and i see anther one monted on the evaporat coil in the top left corner
if that goinig bad can cause any problem to the defrost system or not
becouse i get hotpoint refrog which is the same GE parts get defrost problem i change the contral board and defrost thermostat and the heater each one twice and still the same problem
Probably a bad evaporator thermistor, a long white plastic thing clipped to the evaporator, the cold coils in the freezer.
Hello all,
I seem to be having a similar problem to some of the others listed here. I have a GE gsh25kgmd side-by-side refrigerator and this morning it started making a noise that sounded to me like the ball bearings in a fan going bad. The sound appears to be coming from behind the freezer section, but I can’t be sure. We took the temp in the fridge and it was 43F. The freezer is at 11F.
My wife just now told me that the noise stopped. I don’t think that’s a good thing, but I’m not sure. I have a multimeter but am not that experienced at making electrical repairs other than occasional computer part replacements. Can you please advise me what I can try? Thanks, Matt
Update: After about 2 hours the noise started again. Temps in the fridge and freezer are holding steady.
[quote=smcampbe;155799]Hello all,
I seem to be having a similar problem to some of the others listed here. I have a GE gsh25kgmd side-by-side refrigerator and this morning it started making a noise that sounded to me like the ball bearings in a fan going bad. The sound appears to be coming from behind the freezer section, but I can’t be sure. We took the temp in the fridge and it was 43F. The freezer is at 11F.
My wife just now told me that the noise stopped. I don’t think that’s a good thing, but I’m not sure. I have a multimeter but am not that experienced at making electrical repairs other than occasional computer part replacements. Can you please advise me what I can try? Thanks, Matt
Update: After about 2 hours the noise started again. Temps in the fridge and freezer are holding steady.[/quote]
Sounds like the evaporator fan motor is the culprit. Go to the first page of this thread for the troubleshooting instructions. It’s not complicated and if you do it step by step, you should success. The following article on our forum will explain in detail how to run a continuity test using either an analog meter or a digital meter - How To Check Continuity With Ohmmeter
Here are the breakdown diagrams and Replacement parts for General Electric GSH25KGMDBB Refrigerator | AppliancePartsPros.com
Gene.
Gene, Thanks for your reply. I’ll keep you updated on how it goes.
GE fridge dss model, evaporator fan not working, not spinning visually. Proceeded to verify what is wrong, determined red/white wire 13.4 VDC, 0 VDC in yellow/white wire at connector inside freezer part, fan unhooked. So then went to motherboard on back, and verified red/white 13.4 VDC, and 13.0VDC at yellow/white wires on cable of motherboard. Based on this, It appears the cable/path from the motherboard to connector for evaporator fan is bad. I’m going to ohm the path without voltage to check for a short, but this just seems like I may be missing something. Any ideas or anybody ever see this scenario??? Thanks.
More to the story…
Just tried ohming path from motherboard to connector inside freezer supplying voltages to fan, the red and white paths ohm to 0, but the yellow/yellow does not ohm out, like the connection is somehow broke. This seems very weird to me, as it seems the cable from the motherboard to evaporator fan has somehow went bad. Am I thinking of this logically, or missing something still?
Rather rare to have a wiring problem. I would locate the schematic for this fridg. if you can find it. It will show which motherboard pins go to the evaporator motor.
Also, GE designed this board to blow out when the evaporator motor fails, so you probably need a new board.