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Reviews (1)
Jan 25, 2024
Power Control Board (PCB) - easy fix!
I bought this part on Jan 9th '24, for my 13 yr old Samsung counter-depth, French door refrigerator - RFG238AARS/XXA, because it was not cooling and Samsung had discontinued this part. Initially, when I first realized something was wrong. I took off the Power Control Board (PCB) cover on the back of the fridge and saw that the LED on the PCB was flashing a "1 blink" error-code - indicating a "starting failure" - compressor not kicking in. By the way - there are two seperate circuit boards under the cover - the PCB is the smaller of the two and sits above the main/BIG board. I unplugged the fridge for a couple hours, plugged it back in and everything seemed to be fine - no flashing LED, compressor kicked in, all was good - for about a month, then the exact same problem. After doing my research and calling a couple local repair clinics and checking a couple other things - I decided to buy this "new" board rather than a "used" board.
Before I disconnected and pulled out the original PCB I took a couple pictures of the "worksite" (ALWAYS UNPLUG APPLIANCE FIRST!!) I noticed the compartment it was sitting in was darkened from overheating. This helped assure me it was the power control board that had failed. While this new board is not a OEM part, it has a different design and costs about double of what a discontinued OEM board had cost, I had no option other than to shop for a new fridge. I bought it. It arrived quickly in the U.S. mail (2days), was packaged well. Had a return ppd label enclosed for the old board (if you choose to return it).
As I mentioned earlier the circuitry design on the new board looked different than the OEM board. I carefully plugged the new board into it's compartment (UNPLUG FRIDGE FIRST), double checked everything and plugged the fridge back in - the compressor kicked on immediately.
I then cleaned and put everything back together and all has been great so far! No complaints.
One other thing, while it does state on the website that you can return this part, the packaging the board comes in is secured by a sticker/label that states - it's not refundable if opened. Understandably. Hoping to get another 13 years or more from the fridge!