PFS22SISBSS General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

After checking the stories, the consensus of opinion was to change the mother board. I had a tremendous help from Tom Paone at quality@applianceeducator.com. He also told me to change the motherboard but to make sure that the coils were totally defrosted before starting up the refrigerator after changing the board.

Took off three nuts around the board at the back of the unit. Removed the input wires and you have to push in the plastic tabs holding the board in. Then just put the new board in place and push till the tabs click. Re-install the wires and put the cover back on.

Really simple task,

It is now a week since doing this and the unit is working perfectly. No soulds and good nights sleep. The ghost has moved on.

I went to a GE repair center to explain my problem, the service center reccomended that I have a techinician come out o look at it. $75.00 for the visit and what ever labor and materials wuld cost.

I went on line to see if there were others having this same problem and found that there were many with the same problem.

After reading some of the ways that people found out what was wrong ...it became a matter of three components, the timer, heater or thermostat.

I tried the most common component and the less expensive one first , the thermostat switch I installed it very easily snipping two wires and attaching the news using wire nuts I used the diagram on this website to pinpoint the component and there has not been a problem since.

Unplug refrigerator. First I removed 3 screws to remove cover for Board ASM Main located on back of refrigerator then loosen Board by pressing on each of 4 plastic pins then unscrew ground wire (green) then transfer all plugs from old Board to new Board, put back new board through pins, screw back ground wire then put back cover then plug back refrigerator, took 5 minutes

I removed the old temperature sensor by cutting the wires. I attached the wires of the new sensor with wire nuts and mounted it in the same bracket.

The main board is easy to get to behind the access plate. You will find seven different wire harness plugs, six which are white, that are impossible to remove without breaking the retaining clips which hold them in place....but that's OK.....you are throwing away the old board anyway, so nothing lost. The plugs will snap back into each of their respective terminal locations without a problem. Be sure to treat the four white, plastic pins that hold the board in place delicately....you will not want to mess those little dudes up!

All you have to do is replace the circuit board which is really easy. Still kinda mad because the fridge is less than 2 years old. If you hear the clicking noise its coming from the circuit board.

First, unplug the refrigerator. Next, remove the lower panel on the back of the refrigerator that covers the compressor, condenser and fan compartment. Looking at the refrigerator from the back, the condenser fan is at the lower right corner. There is no information about removing the fan motor, so it took a bit of study. It became obvious that the plastic fan venturi (panel with hole in it for fan blade) needed to be removed. There were two screws that held the venturi panel in place. After removing these screws the top half of the venturi panel could be bent down and pulled from the cabinet. Note that there are tabs and slots on the bottom of this panel that will need to be matched up when replacing the panel. Next the fan blade needed to be removed. This is done by pulling firmly on the balde and it separated from the motor shaft. The most difficult problem was to remove the motor from the motor bracket. There is very little room to remove the two phillips head screws from the front of the bracket, so I used a socket ratchet wrench with an adapter that would hold a phillips bit. This allowed me to remove the screws which were at a right angle to the wrench handle. It took quite a few incremental ratchet movements to remove each screw. After the screws were removed, the motor and wire could be removed by prying the plastic motor bracket apart. There is a insulated cover that is tie wrapped over the motor plug. This was removed and the plug was removed. The steps were reversed to install the new motor. Be sure the venturi panel is positioned correctly and that the fan blade is pushed firmly onto the motor shaft.

Well, I first had a local service guy look at the frige. only to find out his opinion was to replace the entire unit, because the Mother board cost more than the unit was worth. Me not accepting that answer, decided to look on line for a part and availability as well as price. Surprise, Part Select had what I wanted. Now, on the back of the unit in the upper left hand corner is the access door for the mother board.Find it, but before proceeding disconnect the power supply from the wall receptacle. Remove the surrounding screws on the access door with a nut driver and the correct size METRIC socket. Disconnect the wiring connectors on both sides of the board. Now there are 4 plastic type (mine were white) retaining studs holding the board in place. BE CAREFUL not to break these as you gently pull the board off studs. Replace board with new one, and restore wire connectors in their perspective places. Each connector has a different amount of pins inside so connecting them is easy. I know nothing about refrigeration, and this was a piece of cake. Less than 15 min. Unit cools like never before!!!

I first shut off water flow to the fridge. Examination of the package (which was not exact in appearance to the original) demonstrated that the electrical connectors were well-insulated so I arrogantly and successfully proceded without disconnecting the power. My fridge is old enough that the model doesn't appear exactly on anyone's list so I wasn't alarmed that it took an extra 10 minutes or so to noodle out how to adapt the slightly different inlet cowling and electrical cord with extension, but the device is pretty simple.
Soon I loosened the two mounting screws with a nut driver, used a screwdriver to pry away the plastic snap-in housing over the electrical socket on the fridge inner wall and pulled away the electrical plug. The original water fill tube remained in its cavity, ready for re-use.
The new unit's mounting points matched the original screw locations perfectly, as did the fill cowling - which on the replacement icemaker has two possible attachment points. The new unit's electrical connector required an extension pigtail to adapt to my socket, but it was included in the package. The extra cable posed a minor cosmetic issue because it hangs in the collection basket a bit, but that will soon be remedied with a tie wrap.
After the water was restored and an anxious wait of a few hours, we had well-formed ice cubes that weren't all stuck together and the stalactites haven't reappeared.

I unplugged the electrical connection. Then I removed the 2 screws holding the icemaker in place. I lifted out the old icemaker unit and put the new one in place. Then put the 2 screws back in and plugged in the new unit.

The icemaker started making ice very soon after turning the unit on.

used a screwdriver to remove screw and unplugged part. Plugged in new one and secured with a screw.
Simple

After further diagnosis decided the main circuit board was the likely culprit. Ordered a new one from PartSelect. It came in 2 days and took less than 30 minutes to install. Unplugged the refrig. Removed the old board cover with a nut driver. Removed the wiring cables (note their location on the board) and also there were a couple of cable plugs on my refrig that were not not hooked to anything on the board. Snapped the old board out and the new board in. Reinstalled the cables and then the board cover. Plugged the refrig in and back in business. PartSelect is a great website! The speed of delivery and available information just saved me $500 to $600 from a appliance repair shop.

The most dificult was the diagnosis. The condenser fan was turning slowly and the entire compressor/coil unit was too hot to touch. Removing the rear cover panel and placing a small desk fan behind the refrigerator cooled the compressor coil unit and allowed the freezer to get back to the 1 degree F operating range. This made my wife happy because she could continue to use the refrigerator and was willing to put up with the fan noise.

The Part select recommendation page stated that the most common cause was a control board failure [which was ultimately true] but I orderd a control board, a compressor fan motor and a themostat to be able to fix it in one exercise. The parts took ~3 days to arrive and during this time the desk fan kept the freezer at correct operating temp.
Replacing the control board and repowering the refrigerator [ took 1 hour] immediatly brought the original compressor fan motor up to speed. However it took the unit another 2 hours to get back to the 1 degree operating condition. The temperature had risen from 1 degree to 4 degrees in the time the unit was powered down.

After advise from the expert, he was adamant the motherboard was the (via symptoms)problem. After receiving the replacement board (via FEDEX), I followed the easy to understand instructions. I did number the electrical plugs and mapped the connections on paper. The key to the rapid fix was to carefully read all of the instructions to verify which (if any) wires needed elimination, which in my case was none. I will definitely use this service in the future as the expense was affordable and after research, I estimate a savings between 55% to 60%.

Unplugged refrigerator and used a screwdriver to remove access panel on rear of refrigerator to expose "mother board". Unplugged connectors (6 total) and using needle nose pliers released two retainers to remove mother board. Installed new mother board snapping it onto the two retainers and plugged the connectors onto the new mother board. Plugged refrigerator into outlet, refrigerator came back on, automatically reset it's temperature settings and has been working fine since. Total time, less than 15 minutes. Money saved, hundreds of dollars!