Ice build-up around the fan making a noise.

SOUNDS LIKE YOU EVAPORATOR FAN HAS EITHER SEIZED----REPLACE; OR WAS BANGING ON ICE AND FINALLY STOPPED ---DEFROST

Noisy fan = new fan motor.

There is a fan in the back of the freezer that runs when the compressor is running. It sounds like you have ice build up around the fan.
You could have one of these problems: (Sorted by most likely to least likely)
1) Auto Defrost timer, defrost bi-metal or defrost heater is defective - the unit will go into auto defrost about twice a day, if this fails you will have lots of ice built up around the cooling fins and sometimes on the fan. Pull the back off the inside of the freezer and check for ice build up around the cooling fins, there should be none or very little if its running normal.

2) Bad door gasket - if the freezer door is leaking warm moist air inside the freezer it could be condensing around the fan causing ice (you will also see ice build up on things inside your freezer too).

3) Plugged drain - the drain leads from the freezer down to the drain pain under the fridge. If this is plugged ice will build up on the bottom of the freezer and potentially around the fan.

it sounds like the evaporator fan blade is hitting some ice that has built up around the blades i have seen this happen a lot on g.e. SxS lately,if you can remove the ice maker and dispenser you can see the fan blade,if you dont want to do this then shut down the refrigerator and leave freezer door open and heat it carefully with a hairdrier to speed the process up to melt this ice then restart it and the noise should be gone

If this unit has a ice maker, when it fills the tray, water spills out around the fill tube. The water drips down and builds up around the fan over time. Need a drain line extension to slide over water line, should take care of issue.

Hi,
The fan is hitting on ice buildup...
Check out these tips...they can help you figure out what is going wrong withyour refrigerator and why it is not cooling

Refrigerator not Cooling or Fridge not Cooling

How to Defrost Refrigerator Defrost Timer Problem

Water Running in refrigerator from Freezer

Refrigerator or Freezer not Cooling or Getting Cold

heatman101

have a look behing your drws in the freezer it has probably started to freeze and the fan that blows the cold air around will have an ice build up. The noise you hear is the fan bashing against the ice. The fan is normally situated behind the panel in the freezer section.

Hope this helps

Hi, what sounds to me what happened, is the evaporator fan motor prop (blade) has hit a patch of ice that had built up and temporally caused the unit to stop and warm up. I have seen this happen on commercial units to where after the unit has went through its defrost cycle as you will have on this system, not all of the ice was melted away and the fans stopped due to ice build up. When the defrost cycle happened, this caused the water at the top back and after the fan began to run again all is freezing and back to normal. When a evaporator fan stops during the regular cooling cycle, the freezer section will start to over freeze very badly due to no air flow across this coil. I would keep an eye on it as you may be loosing this motor. It is called the evaporator fan motor, 120 volts/a/c, 60hz. small sealed, single phase. R.P.M.s and H. P. should be noted on a data plate on the unit maybe inside, you will need to look. In any case, keep a close eye on it for now if it is working correctly. You may not have this problem again. If it does happen you can contact me and we can go into more detail to solve the problem.
Sincerely,
Shastalaker7

The evaporator fan motor inside your fridge is constantly trying to keep the temperature you have set it to. when the fan is on it circulates the cold air from your freezer in to your fridge. if you hear a banging noise it is cause by the fan hitting a build up of ice. this can be caused by a clogged drain pan or tube, not allowing water build up to be drained, or you could also have a defrost heater issue in which case you would have a large build up of ice near your fan. you can access the fan motor by removing the two panels at the back of the freezer, once removed you will be able to see whether or not there is a ice build up.hope this helps you
Thanks.

The defrost system is not doing it's job. I bet if you took the panel off below the fan you will see more ice on the cooling coils. There should be a light coat of frost on the coils but not a heavy ice build up. There is a heating element at the bottom area of these coils which should be defrosting all this ice.

1. A defrost timer turns this heating element on.

2. The heating element melts the ice.

3. A thermo disc attached to the coils will turn the heater off.

One or more of these are not doing it's job.