Rick, I thought I'd share this with you. You can post what you like to your page. Okay, this is the last post for this repair saga. I replaced the control board and the refrigerator is working properly again. The Whirlpool Gold GX5FHDXVBO French Door Bottom Freezer Refrigerator uses an adaptive defrost control board that varies the time between defrost cycles based on the amount of defrosting needed in the previous cycle. The nice thing about this control board is that you don’t have to take anything apart to test all of the refrigerator components. This fact also highlights my reservations about using this website for Fix-it-Yourself advice unless you get an advisor that has actually worked on your model of refrigerator (substitute appliance here too). Let me explain. When I first logged onto this site I was pleased to get someone that actually responded back very quickly. Not knowing much about the basic defrosting cycle (but willing to learn) I was also pleased to get advice about the basic components that make up the automatic defrost cycle. But what I would eventually learn was that there was no detailed guidance from my advisor about how to get to all those components. And that ended up being the more difficult part about troubleshooting this model. There are a lot of plastic parts that snap together in hidden ways and a defined sequence of steps to removing the parts in the freezer compartment (to get at the defrosting parts). If you don’t know the sequence you are going to have issues and end up in a trial and error situation. I did not get that advice from this site and it would have been invaluable. I have attempted to rectify that omission in this post by providing to other Do-it-Yourselfers some of the details that I found out with my repair experience. I am also describing in this post how to get to the control board in this Whirlpool model. The most disappointing part with my experience is that my advisor did not tell me that taped in a clear plastic pouch to the bottom of the refrigerator are detailed instructions on how to test virtually all the refrigerator components using the temperature control buttons in the fresh food section of the refrigerator. It’s ingenious and simple and you don’t have to take anything apart or use a multimeter. I discovered the plastic pouch by accident when I decided to dust the compressor coils. My instructions were located in the lower, front, right hand side and I could reach them by hand. Look behind the removable toe grill. Just standing in front of your refrigerator you can test your Program Code, Defrost Thermostat and Defrost Circuit, Compressor/Condenser Fan, Evaporator/Freezer Fan, Fresh Food Themistor, Freezer Thermistor, Open Damper to name the most critical tests. You never have to pick up a tool. You may have to eventually use your tools if you discover a fault and need to confirm it by taking things apart and using a multimeter. These instructions are great for the layman, and for those that are interested you also get a full wiring diagram which I could not find online. My final recommendation to new Do-it-Yourselfers is to go to youTube and watch the many videos about refrigerator repairs. It is very informative even if it is not your exact model. The internet also has some great animated tutorials about how the defrost cycle is supposed to work (includes both mechanical timers and the newer adaptive control boards). So good luck on your repair work and hope this post helps the next person. Here are my notes about my experience with replacing my control board on my Whirlpool model. Replacing the Control Board on the Whirlpool Gold GX5FHDXVBO French Door Bottom Freezer Refrigerator 1. Remove the electrical cord from the outlet 2. Remove the fresh food compartment light cover by firmly grasping the sides of the clear plastic and pushing the cover straight back into the refrigerator compartment 3. Remove both light bulbs 4. This is the tricky part. Find the two openings on the back side of the control board cover. This is a white piece of molded plastic labeled number 4 on the Refrigerator Liner Parts list page. The push buttons for changing the temperature level are on the front and the two openings to release the cover from the top of the refrigerator compartment are on the back. The parts list is downloadable from the Whirlpool web site. The two openings are best visible if you put your head into the compartment, look up, and look to the front of the refrigerator. Using the flat bladed screw driver put the tip into one of the openings and twist to release the internal tab and pull that side down. While holding that side down with one hand, use the screw driver to release the tab on the other side. With both tabs released, tilt the back edge down. With the cover tilted about 80 degrees from horizontal, you will be able to clear the front tabs from their slots in the ceiling of the fresh food compartment 5. Now you can remove the two wire connectors form the circuit board (control board). Press the two clips securing the control board(s) to the cover and remove the control board. 6. Install the new control board in the cover and reassemble the refrigerator in the reverse order that you took it apart. 7. The last step is programming the control board so that the code for your refrigerator matches the code in the control board. Follow the programming instructions that came with the new control board. Both light switches have to be depressed while pressing the freezer (-) (down) button three times. It can be done with two hands and a little dexterity. This is the easiest part. 8. Then you are done! Cliff Szafran

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