LG Refrigerator Won't Cool - How to Troubleshoot and Fix

if your LG refrigerator is running you should go catch it but if yours isn't cooling like this one is and it's definitely on the fritz let's go through all the different ways to solve the problem of it not cooling whether it's in the fridge the freezer or both I have two LG refrigerators actually right here one's in good working shape and one is not and we're going to go through kind of both of these at the same time to maybe show you some differences between what makes one work and what doesn't and what you can do to solve it hopefully permanently so let's go ahead and start getting these units tore apart and show you a few different things on what you want to look for to hopefully either fix your own refrigerator or at least solve why it's doing this and get some help first what part of the refrigerator is not actually cooling properly is it the refrigerator portion that isn't coined properly the freezer portion or is it both cabinets the entire refrigerator the answer to this question is going to drastically shape the answer on what you need to look at first let's look at a scenario where the refrigerator cabinet is not cooling properly I'm going to go ahead and take out all the shelves of the refrigerator cabinet and then I'm going to remove the evaporator panel now each and every LG refrigerator could be a little bit different but in general there are going to be two screws hiding behind these little covers that can be pulled off and then possibly one or two on the evaporator plate as well this one has three screws that we have to remove from the refrigerator in order to inspect the cooling system inside when you attempt to remove the panel it should just pop off once the screws are out if you can't get it off you may have to try a force defrost or unplug the unit and remove the ice another way I'm going to show you how to do the force defrost after a bit in the video through the test modes by the way but once you have the panel off you can inspect the evaporator fan and everything else inside the refrigerator cabinet note the wires fans sensors everything that could be behind the plate that is in the cabinet if you want to remove the paint Channel you may have to remove some wires that keep it operating and in place but also inspect the wires and wire clusters are any of the wires out of place damaged removed anything like that could tell you why the refrigerator cabinet may not be cooling properly if you remove any of the wires make sure to check behind them for any possible moisture damage that could have potentially occurred now back to the evaporator system if you had trouble with the ice make sure to check the defrost heater and then the defrost sensors if there are any with a multimeter here is the typical resistance chart for LG thermistors in your refrigerator cabinet this will tell you if any of the sensors could be off spec which would cause the unit not to defrost properly because the refrigerator thinks that it's already reached the proper heating temperature so it doesn't run the defrost cycle properly a good evaporator system should have a light coat of frost on it so you know that it is operating properly No frost would suggest that the unit is not cooling the cabinet at all a partially super heavy amount a frost where the silver lines come in at would suggest that maybe it's getting low on refrigerant and then far too much frost on the entire system indicates that there is a problem with the defrost system that needs repaired it works but it's over freezing everything and not removing that Frost through the defrost cycle now if it's potentially a bad fan you wouldn't know it when you have the doors open staring at it even if all of the wires are plugged in the fans on these type of refrigerators automatically shut off when the doors are open to save electricity so we need to trick the fan to turn on and you can do this by one of three things you could start off by putting magnets on both of the hinges of the door to trick the Reed switches that are inside which uh switch on and off through magnets another way you could do it is put a cell phone in the refrigerator shut the doors and see the lights turn off and if the fans turn on after about 30 to 45 seconds finally you could use test mode 1 on the back of the PCB and force it to run from the control board and again I'll show you how to do that test in a few minutes but either way one of these three options should make the EVAP van work but it's clear through the cell phone that we used and put in the refrigerator the fan is not working at all it will need replaced we did see this error code come up on the unit during the very beginning of the video now the EVAP fan you could need will vary by system and if you need the replacement part make sure to check out the links in the description for many of the fans and sensors that this refrigerator uses you can help the channel out by purchasing one from us now not every LG refrigerator is the same on other LG refrigerators let's go ahead and tear down this other one we're going to remove the shelves and then the evaporator panel but once we get the evaporator panel off well there's really not a lot to see this one is seemingly in good shape the tests would be identical on this model but the fans and sensors are going to be all inside this evaporator cabinet and you may have to take some things apart to test it but so far so good on this one that's working but all of the coolant lines are in the freezer or cabinet speaking of freezer cabinets let's talk about the freezer let's say it's not cooling at all or not very well let's go ahead and get to the freezer section and see what we can find out you want to remove the door or doors to access the bottom and fortunately there are only two screws that you need to take out that are Phillips head to remove the door once you have those two screws out one on each side you just lift up on the front of the door and it comes out easy this design from LG is really really nice I appreciate how they operated this now if you have a four-door unit you're going to do the same thing to the top door to access the evaporator system in the rear but at any rate the evaporator panel in the back should look something like this although it could be slightly different depending on the way yours looks there could be tabs that need pressed in or screws that will allow you to remove the panel depending on the model you may have to remove the rail Glides or sliders and on this model to remove the EVAP panel I only had to remove the one left side slider to remove of the cover exactly like the refrigerator cabinet you're going to do the same inspection and removal of wires behind the cover to access everything remove the wires in the entire evaporator assembly will be available for viewing the diagnosis here is identical to the refrigerator cabinet is their heavy Frost is their light frost is there a large ball of ice in only one area how do the sensors test out is the van circulating air and running properly here's that sensor chart again that we had earlier but note that it is different than the fresh food cabinet in terms of resistance values for the sensors but it's the same kind of check with a multimeter if there is a ton of ice on the evaporators either the sensors or the defrost heater are bad you'd want to test them individually and replace what is bad with the first refrigerator showing that it's clearly not running anything at all There's No frost on the EVAP at all let's go ahead and go to the second refrigerator and look what's behind the panel the doors come off exactly the same then it lets us access the evaporator panel in the back back but after an attempt the crossbar is not able to be removed as there is a refrigerant line behind behind it took me a minute to figure this out but once we have the evaporator panel removed slightly here is what we see a light frost pattern that is not too heavy and the fans when tested work fine I will note that the frost pattern does seem to be a little bit weaker than what I would like it's possible that there could be a low charge on this refrigerator but I'll have to do some more tests now that we have inspected the upper cabinets on both of these and the lower cabinets as well we can move to the back of the refrigerators to test what is probably the problem when your entire refrigerator is not cooling I'm going to push these refrigerators out a little bit to give us some space behind and we're going to do quite a bit of work and testing on the rear side of this as well as show you the test mode on figuring those fans out as well behind the refrigerator let's remove the back plate to look underneath the refrigerator there's usually six to eight screws here and then lift the plate up when they are all out behind the evaporator panel there are a few key things to look at here the compressor the condenser coils and the condenser fan these three things will be oriented differently based on your model the fan should be running at all times unless it's in defrost so if it is either obstructed or not moving it will need either cleaned out or replaced if you cannot get it to turn on at all if the condenser coils are clogged with dirt you'll need to clean them out you'll need to either use a condenser brush for that or an air compressor and vacuum this is a typical problem that will cause a lot of systems not to cool properly if it is both the upper and lower cabinets let's go ahead and take the control panel cover off which is just above the compressor area in the case of this LG refrigerator it's just three screws now each PCB is going to look different but they share a few common components that will help you figure out your refrigerator diagnosis the first thing to test is the one or more fuses that your refrigerator could have sometimes these fuses could go bad and if they do go bad it will cause the entire refrigerator not to cool down and you may not get an error code if just the fuse is bad to test the fuse use your multimeter set it to Ohm's resistance or you could use the continuity setting and press the leads to each side of the fuse make sure you're very careful here because if your hands touch the control board you could get a zap now if you get any reading on the multimeter other than ol the fuse is good you should get about 0.01 Ohms on the multimeter and that is all you need for any of the fuses to show that you can get a signal through them some fuses are clear that will have a small wire on the inside that could show a visual break others are solid white though but you again you want to use the multimeter to confirm any fuse you see just in case if the fuse is bad you may be able to Simply replace it and get the refrigerator to work others may require soldering and desoldering which if you aren't comfortable with that would require a new control board now let's get to that system test or reset that we talked about earlier to force some component testing and show you how to use that Force defrost mode as well first we want to give this refrigerator a clean boot up unplug the refrigerator wait 30 seconds and then plug it back in after you wait about a minute for it to boot up locate the test button on your control board it could be in various places but here's where we found them on both units begin the test by pressing the button one time just for about half a second it should beep once as shocking as it is the test will not work on the unit that is not cooling at all which points Us in the direction of a general board failure this fuse works but the board is clearly having issues now if the board beeps you should see this on the front of the refrigerator to let you know that it is now in test mode one this will force the unit to run all the fans inside the refrigerator the compressor the condenser fan so if you have the doors open to the fridge you can visually look and make sure that the fan is running properly to see if it works or not another test you can do at this point is to touch the compressor and feel if it is vibrating if the compressor is not vibrating a relay or inverter on the control board is bad and is going to need tracked down and replaced and that will vary by your LG model now while the test is running it's possible that you could see a blinking light on the control board either on their PCB itself or on front of the refrigerator depending on the model this light on the board could be very very hard to see you may even want to turn your lights off to assist with finding it if the refrigerator has any major errors the light will flash one or multiple times in a row indicating a possible error code where the light is on your board will vary but the flashes of light will indicate any fault codes the fault codes will vary from one blink to eight blinks and here is the list of codes use this list to help determine what kind of error code could be going on with the refrigerator it is still possible that the compressor could be bad even without getting any flash of light but the presence of a code basically guarantees that there is an exact problem is listed codes 1 4 6 7 and 8 typically suggest the PCB is bad or there is a loose wire that needs taken care of codes 2 3 and 5 mean there is a sealed system issue issue or the compressor is bad and truth is you're not going to find a DIY repair anywhere that will take care of those problems now note that these lights could flash inside the test mode or even before you run it so I look for them both ways either flashing or inside the test mode just to be safe with that being done go ahead and press the button to test mode 2. this will close any damper on the LG refrigerator and just run the freezer portion but keep the compressor running this could help you isolate issues if there is a fan issue or a damper issue but generally this will only rule out those two specific things so it's not very useful if the second test is running this is what you should see on the front of the interface and again you should still see in here freezer fans running on most models if you press the button a third time it will yield three beeps and show the number 33 on the screen or it could possibly revert to showing the temperature and what is going on will vary from model to model on this one 3 3 means that it is the compressor should turn off and all the fans will turn off as well this will turn your refrigerator into that forced defrost mode the key here is that all the systems are off this will heat the unit up if everything's working properly you could hear sizzling or crackling noises of the ice melting if it's in good working shape and it will remove all the ice from the cabinets finally once you have that test done it should last about 15 minutes and it will revert to normal but if you want to go past that just press the button one last time and it should return the panel to normal you will not hear any beeps at this point and it will reset the refrigerator to the normal running state with the compressor and the fans turning on and running again if you leave the defrost mode for about 15 minutes it's going to revert to this state as well but if you cycle through and don't get the last beep then you know that the refrigerator has been reset properly doing the reset could allow your refrigerator to begin functioning properly between the power cycle and running it through the tests it's not a guarantee but it's a very easy way to pop possibly fix your refrigerator now we have two more final tests for your LG refrigerator let's get to the dangerous tests of voltage to the compressor and the compressor itself let's start by locating the wire cluster Mark con 201 on your control board it varies on location but it's usually on the side with the giant capacitor and heat sinks this sends the signal to your compressor to make it actually run go to test mode 1 and wait about 15 to 30 seconds if you can get it to cycle into that test mode then take out your multimeter and set it to ac voltage this can be very dangerous so wear your gloves or be very careful I wasn't doing that when I was filming though anyway with your leads press them into the two rightmost connectors that have wires outgoing generally the wires here should match the ones on your compressor but I found this not to be the case on both refrigerators just the one on the left when you test the voltage on AC you should get a a reading between 160 to 185 volts ac when it's running that means it's good if it's well above or below that number there is a major issue generally if you get below 120 volts ac there is very likely a board problem which is definitely what we are seeing with this bad unit it won't test and the AC is bad which I have a board on the way to try to fix this as you can see on the other system it is working within a good range although the wires are a different color between the con 201 and the compressor it still worked just the same now let's go ahead and set the meter to amperage while we still have it in the test mode set your meter to 2 to 20 amps you want to take the multimeter and use the amp clamp around one of the two wires going from the con 201 wire that we just checked or you can do one wire feeding to the compressor itself just be careful not to get shocked if you do it on the board now if the compressor is vibrant rating and running you should get a good amperage range of between 0.5 and 0.7 ohms this means your compressor is in good working shape at least in terms of refrigerant if it's above or below that 0.5 to 0.7 ohms it's likely that you are low on refrigerant or the unit is not working properly finally there's one last test to determine what is causing the refrigerator not to cool we want to look at the temperature of the black or silver condenser coils that are behind the unit near the compressor usually to the right side there are three key areas behind here that we want to observe the line going out of the compressor into the condenser coil which is Silver the coil itself and then the copper line coming back in from the refrigerator into the compressor called the suction line and a properly working refrigerator you should see a temperature on the condenser coil that is quite a bit higher than the ambient temperature around the refrigerator both in the line going out from the compressor into the condenser and the condenser coil itself the copper suction line should be the opposite it should actually be a little bit quarter to the touch or a lower temperature than the ambient air because it was just in the refrigerator supposedly cooling the cabinet optimally you should see a 20 degree Fahrenheit temperature difference between the coils and the air around but if the temperature is the same between all three locations simply put there is either no refrigerant in the refrigerator or there is a compressor issue where the refrigerant isn't being cycled through to the system and chances are if it is not the board at this point or a sensor you have something that is beyond a DIY fix and let's get to how to solve that problem now that we've gone through both of the refrigerators we can come to some surprising or maybe not so much inclusions this refrigerator here the board is clearly bad in it it does have the ER F code on it as well for the evaporator fan but I'm going to replace the PCB first on it and see what happens if that resolves this issue otherwise then I will replace the fan now surprisingly during this video we found out that this other refrigerator is showing some warning signs of it losing refrigerant the it is not getting as cold as we'd want and we are seeing the fact that the condenser coils are not getting as warm as they should properly and then the frost pattern inside the freezer is good but not great that suggests that it's going to need a recharge of refrigerant but chances are it's going to also need a new compressor now if you've gotten to the point that you do suspect that it's a compressor or a sealed system in your refrigerator what can you do well because of the class action lawsuits against LG because of all the problems these type of refrigerators have had you are entitled to a five-year parts and labor warranty from LG and then a 10-year warranty on the compressor how do you know how old your refrigerator is well all you have to do is get into the refrigerator portion of your unit look on the name plate where the model number and the serial number should be chances are you're going to find the actual date code for the unit to show if it's either newer than five years or newer than 10 but let's say you don't have the date code on it how can you tell well if you look at the serial number the very first number will be the year of manufacture and it's only one number the next two are the month so for example if your first three numbers are 603 then that means your refrigerator was made in 2016 in March or 2026 in March but well that has hasn't happened yet and once 2026 happens we should have flying cars by then so again if your refrigerator is under five years you should be able to go to LG to get the warranty here is the number at the bottom of the screen what you would call to get onto that warranty generally you want to call them instead of local technicians to figure out who's authorized to do do the repair at a reduced cost because again LG will either pay for everything or at least pay for the 300 compressor if you do have to pay labor for it expect to spend anywhere from five hundred dollars up to maybe eight hundred dollars for the labor and if your unit is 10 years old and you want to get it fixed expect to spend anywhere from eight hundred dollars to twelve hundred dollars to get it repaired now if you get to this point and you do want to fix your refrigerator here are some questions you want to ask the technician what are they actually going to do to the refrigerator what parts are they going to replace a good proper fix on an LG refrigerator should involve the compressor the filter dryer and then they need to tell you what what they're going to do about the condensing system we know that this once probably lost refrigerant in it so are they going to check for the leak how are they going to check for the leak are they using a UV filter dryer or are they going to do a pressure test or how maybe how are they going to go about buy this the good news is if you do the right things on a LG refrigerator through the warranty or even the cash on delivery process if the technician does it right you're going to probably get a fridge it lasts another 10 years but if they don't do it right the compressor problem can come back again and then you may be looking at a brand new refrigerator I hope all of these steps helped you out if you did find that you needed a fan or another item in your LG refrigerator make sure to check the links for those in the description to buy them from our store at Ben's appliances.com but chances are you're going to need attack for this because 99 of the time that we see an LG fridge it's not the PCB board it's either the compressor or the sealed system and I hope this checklist of ideas helps you out have a great day

Channel: Bens Appliances and Junk

Views: 230,204

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Id: qM-rTkzTLis

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 23 2023