We’ve all been there: you drag yourself out of bed and shuffle to your GE refrigerator for your morning brewski before heading out job hunting. You open the door and right away notice sumpin’ ain’t raht. As you reach in for that 40-ounce can of Old Milwaukee, your worst nightmare is confirmed: WARM BEER! Red alert! Deflector shields up, arm photon torpedos!

In a blind panic, your hands starting to tremble slightly from fear of sobriety and early DTs, you snatch open the freezer door to find that the temperature inside seems normal. In a rare moment of clarity, you place several cans of Old Milwaukee in the freezer to start ’em chilling. As you’re shoving the last can in place, you notice the back wall inside the freezer is coated with fuzzy ice. Suddenly, like a light shining through the rapidly-dissipating fog from last night’s beers, you realize what’s happened: your GE refrigerator has had a defrost system failure.

With your bowels rumbling and your hands now fully shaking, you choke down the bile searing the back of your throat and race to your computer where you frantically pull up the one and only website that has always helped you in the past and that you know you can rely on in dark times like these: Fixitnow.com Samurai Appliance Repair Man. A quick search at the Samurai’s site pulls up this very post that you’re now reading on The Samurai Test for the Defrost Circuit in a GE Refrigerator with a Muthaboard… and the Quick Fix. Holy guacamole– it’s like looking in a mirror with another mirror behind you! But instead of seeing yourself, you see this:

The Samurai Test for the Defrost Circuit in a GE Refrigerator with a Muthaboard
(click for larger view)

The Quick Fix:

– If the defrost circuit tests good, replace the muthaboard and thermistors.

– Otherwise, replace the defrost heater and hi-limit.

Problem solved! Now go pull those beers outta the freezer before you forget and pop a cold one.