Fridge isn't cooling and has ice build-up. How do I fix it?

DEFROST TIMER ! I Have a Whirlpool (model # WRF560SMYB01) that's about 3 years old. French door refrigerator, bottom freezer. It started frosting up on the back panel of the freezer & icing up around the fan making a horrible noise, caused by the ice build up behind it. Took the fan cover off, defrosted it several times with a hair dryer, like every 2-4 days, than I created a system of my own with hot water & tubing which made it faster but didn't fix the problem.... Found the wiring diagram in the bottom part of the refrigerator rolled up in the back that actually has diagnostic instructions to test your compressor, your fans & your heaters to tell you if they are working properly. All controlled by the digital control panel in your refrigerator that allows you to increase or decrease your temperature in your freezer & your fridge, also tells you when to replace your filters & such.... After I found that & figured out the coding of it, I was able to manually defrost my freezer without pulling it out away from the wall & making a big mess with the water & tubing! I figured out it was my defrost timer because I could manually put it in defrost from the control panel in the refrigerator but it wouldn't go into defrost by itself. After that it was a matter of finding the defrost timer on the refrigerator, which I was unable to find anywhere online....So, That's why I'm here now to tell you that your Defrost timer is located in the back, bottom part of your refrigerator on the left hand side, in a white box attached to the side by a metal plate. Unscrew the metal plate pull out the entire box. (You can take the plate off , I did) There are 4 screws, remove the top of that box, inside there is a control board & it controls the defrost system, Which I just replaced & it took about 10minutes after I got the new control board. The problem would be to find a company that will sell you the control board without having any kind of license. We used to have a company called Johnstown? that would sell us parts but now for some reason, they will, but it's twice as expensive if you don't have a license. Found a place called Dey Distributors that will for a reasonable price, but not everyone has one in there area & not everyone knows or will tell you where to go, just because they want you to call a refrigerator repair company so they can charge you an arm & a leg. My Dad was in the Heating/ Cooling

business & I would never think to call someone without looking at it myself first. Unless your Refrigerator needs Freon you can do it yourself for under half of what those guys Charge! They will charge you 60$ just to walk in the door! If I helped just one person fix there refrigerator today that would be GREAT! I was ready to push mine out the door to the curb. Good Luck to all of you!

I have a GE side by side model gss23wstass about 8 years old. The freezer temp started going up. I took off the back panel inside the freezer and noticed the defrost heater would go on but only melt the bottom part of the evaporator coils. Then ice build-up would form on the evaporator and surrounding area and would not allow heat exchange. That is why the temperature started going up.

I ended up manually defrosting it a few times and read some info online and thought it might be because of the thermistor.

I replaced the thermistor that clips on to the top tubing of the evaporator. I got it on eBay for about $7. It did the trick. It has been working great for the last couple weeks. Completely defrosts the evaporator. So if you have a partially melted evaporator coil it could be due to the thermistor.

I was having sort of similar issues with with my Whirlpool WRF989SDAM00. It's a French door fridge on top with the freezer on bottom. The issue I was having was the evaporator in the freezer was freezing up until the circulation fan blades were contacting the ice, making noise and not properly cooling the freezer. There was a visible amount of ice in the back of the freezer near the air circulation vents. I defrosted that thing twice until I called a service company. All the guy did was run a self diagnosis and program the fridge to increase the defrost time (and charged me $150). Within about 3 months, the thing froze up again. After that, I pulled the grate off of the back of the freezer, chipped the ice off of the evaporator (wear gloves, the fins on that thing are sharp!) and deduced that the humid climate I live in (Houston, TX) and the lower settings that I had programmed into the fridge were not compatible. I went back to the original factory settings. The factory settings on my fridge are 37degF (Fridge) and 0degF (Freezer) as you have posted. It may be worth increasing your settings a degree or two if you live in a humid part of the country. This may help the defroster keep up.

I had the same problem with my Whirlpool fridge. I replaced the thermistor which snaps onto the heating element and plugs into a plastic connector. The repair was easy except for the removal of the inside panel at the back of the lower freezer drawer. The drawers need to be removed first. It is easy to figure that out too but be gentle as these plastic parts are brittle and can break easily. these aren't cheap to replace so be careful. Go to PartsSelect.com for diagrams and replacement parts. The part was $47 and I saved $300-$400 in repair costs by doing it myself. The only tools I needed was a Philips screwdriver.