Refrigerator question...

[gvstn]

13. You've gotten almost all the tips I would have tried.

Except you may want to find the condenser coils and make sure they are free of dust. (This wouldn't explain why the freezer is working but it can't help to see that they are clean.) They are either under the refrigerator of beneath a removable plastic panel on the back of the refrigerator. They are just an array of copper tubing.



You want to vacuum or brush away as much dust as you possibly can--they need dissipate heat to the surrounding air and dust impedes that process.

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I don't have a spare fridge anymore so if I had your problem I would do the following:

1) Check coils to make sure they are clean.
2) Defrost (difficult without a spare fridge but you don't have that problem) as this is the single most effective tool. And do check that the drain is clear as reply number one suggested so you only have to defrost once.
3) If it still is working the same, where freezer is working and fridge isn't, then I agree with others that it might be a broken fan or thermostat. I've never had to replace those. I do know both my refrigerator section and freezer section do have a fan sound but have never tried to figure out if it is one fan or two separate fans.

One other thought is that ice cream needs a freezer temperature of about -10F. If you have any ice cream in your freezer make sure it is solid/hard. If it isn't solid hard then perhaps your freezer isn't working that great after all. Cleaning coils and defrosting would be my best guess if it is simply a matter of the freezer not getting that cold.

Lastly, I had one refrigerator where adjusting the refrigerator temperature dial seemed to just open a small window/lever/shutter that opened into the freezer. It was located behind the light bulb cover. So when I adjusted the setting from say 4 to 6 it just opened that window a little wider. One time when I was having a problem I noticed that little window was solid ice. So defrosting was the cure.

EDIT: I wanted to correct that last part. I'm not sure which refrigerator it was but looking at my current one it has the 0 to 9 dial which is probably connected to a thermostat and also a freezer temperature dial which goes from A to E. It is the freezer temperature dial that opens and closes the little window which probably bleeds coldness from the freezer into the refrigerator to make the compressor turn off earlier when not needed. On other refrigerators this dial was labeled something like "Heavier Freezer usage on one end and Heavier Refrigerator usage on the other". So these two controls do different things.