Ge fridge HI I have the panel inside the freezer off and am looking at the totally snow covered coils -- what do I do now? How do I know which part is causing the defrost problem? GE side by side model # GSH22JFTACC Thanks

Depending how long the power was off you may have an ice blockage in the freezer. Normal cooling causes the freezer coils to build up frost and snow coating all over the coils. A normal defrost cycle melts that frost/snow off and keeps the coils clear so the fans can move air through the coils.During the power outage the frost may have started to melt wetting the snow. If the refrigerator then came on and re-froze the wet frost/snow into a solid block of ice, the normal defrost cycle would not be able to clear that solid ice out. So it may be blocking the air flow. Remove freezer back panel and see if there is ice back there. If yes--use something like a hair dryer to melt everything out until it is completely clear. Make sure the fans are running also.

Yes the most likely reason for not defrosting is your=> W10135901 Defrost Control Board



The defrost control board can be found inside the fresh food compartment behind the control panel where you adjust temperatures for the refrigerator and freezer. To gt to the control board you need to unplug the refrigerator and disassemble the control panel. Look over the control board sometimes you may see signs of heat damage but not always. If you have questions I will be here so please ask, Thanks Sea Breeze

106.56152500 Parts

Hi emmaubiera86,

The issue with the freezer working but the fridge is not is usually the result of a defrost problem. The first thing to check in this case is the freezer area. Look at the back panel inside the freezer. If you notice frost covering the back panel, you have defrost problem. One of the things that happens during this defrost problem is Air cannot circulate from the freezer(where the cold happens basically) to the fresh food section. The coils inside the freezer are the only part inside the whole refrigerator that "get cold". They need to stay free from excess frost build up so that air can pass through the coils and reach the fridge section of your machine.

Hope it helps.

Thank you for using FixYa.

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Check out these tips...they can help you figure out whats going wrong with your refrigerator and why it is not cooling

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heatman101

Hi,

Check out these tips...they can help you figure out whats going wrong with your refrigerator and why it is not cooling

Refrigerator not Cooling or Fridge not Cooling

How to Defrost Refrigerator Defrost Timer Problem

Water Running in refrigerator from Freezer

heatman101

ge has had alot of problems with the computer board that's in the back of the fridge.but first try this,open the freezer door,you should hear the fan blowing in there,if not you could have a bad evap fan motor,also touch the back wall of the freezer,if there's snow or ice on the back wall you have a defrost problem,you could have a bad heater or a defrost thermostat,also have you cleaned the coil on the bottom of the fridge?remove the bottom kick plate and vac it out,pull out the machine,remove the back bottom panel and vac that out,ashop vac works great for this vac out what you can and then blow out the coil and clean out any of the dust that you couldn't vac up.if the frame between the doors is hot that's one way of telling it's time to clean under there and when you have the back panel off make sure the fan is blowing back there.if everything looks good i would change the computer board,it costs around 150 to 200 hundred bucks.let me know what you find and if you need any more help let me know.

This appears to be a defrost problem. Either the defrost heater is burned out or the defrost thermostat is defective. Look into the rear wall of freezer for a layer of frost building up that will tell you that there more than likely is a large area of snow and frost building up on the evaporator coil. Once you manually defrost the coils you will be able to see the part number WR51X10038 Defrost Heater. It has a glass tube on the outside so it will be easy to spot if the defrost heater element inside is burned out. If you change the defrost heater I recommend that you replace the defrost thermostat part number WR50X10054 Defrost Thermostat. The defrost controls on your model come from the mother board so the is no defrost timer or adaptive defrost. The mother board make the decision when to defrost. When you are able to unplug and inspect the evaporator coils in back of freezer back wall panel let me know what you find, Thanks Sea Breeze

Pull refrig out from the wall and unplug . Remove the 8" x 10 " panel covering the main control board . On this board , unplug the blue plug with 3 larger wires going to it . The sequence looks like this : wire1,wire2,space,wire3 . Use a piece of wire , with both ends stripped about 1/4 " , and insert an end into wire2 and wire3 . Plug refrig back in . Look inside the freezer at the back bottom , and see if you see a red glow . It may take about 30 seconds for the glow to appear . If no glow appears , the defrost heater located at the bottom of the coils ( glass tube ) is probably shorted . Pt # WR51X10042 . Also replace the defrost thermostat Pt # WR50X10068 . To access these parts , the inside freezer panel has to be removed . If you do get a red glow , then the main control board is bad Pt # WR55X10656 .

Just had the same problem with my side-by-side.

In my case, the solution was to empty the freezer side, to access a back panel INSIDE the freezer covering the fan and cooling coils. Two screws held the back panel cover on, and when I removed the panel cover I found the cooling coils to be totally iced up, preventing the flow of cold air into the fridge side. I left the freezer open for a few hours until all the ice was melted, before replacing the inside panel. (I used a blow dryer to help speed up the ice melting).

Everything's working fine now for me - good luck with yours!

MW

The defrost heater is a coiled heating wire inside a glass tube. The glass tube is usually not the easiest to see through, but you may be able to see a break in the wire. It would not hurt to apply 120 volts across the element. A good defrost element would then begin to glow red in just 10 or 20 seconds. Warranty is one year on parts and labor. Be sure to melt all frost off evaporator using a hair blower before reassembly.