SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

[mks]

Hi,
I bought this FF from Comet last Jan. After about 10 months it developed a fault: chilled water iced up and noisy fan in fridge section

Called comet: Eng arrived 5 mins before end of day and said “you must have left to door open, defrost it and it will be fine” and then high tailed it. So I defrosted it and all was well..for about two weeks then same

Called Comet: Eng arrived, said “it must be the fan, I’ll have to order one”. Fan arrived, eng turned up was replaced. All was well for two weeks then same.

Called Comet: Eng arrived took it apart, couldn’t find a fault suggested I was running it too cold !! I asked how it defrosted itself as I wasn’t happy that he didn’t seem to have any answers. It has a heating element he said, how about checking that I said. He stuck his meter on it and couldn’t get a reading. I’ll have to order that he said
Part arrived (late) Eng arrived and fitted it. While he was doing that I put my meter on the heating element he removed, I got a circuit. After two weeks the problem has returned, no surprise there then.

SO I have a few questions,

Do these things actually work properly? I have seen a couple of posts that suggest not.

It seems Comet have been replacing the first thing that has a symptom rather than diagnosing the problem. Anyone got any ideas what the problem might be?

I am running the fridge at 3 deg C, which is the default when it is switched on. The range is 1 to 7 degrees. The ever helpful Comet chap suggested running it at 6 or 7 degrees but this seems very warm and surely since it has a range 1 to 7 it ought to work throughout this range.

I am intending to write to Comet to tell them that they need to fix this fault since even though it is about to go out of guarantee the fault appeared well within guarantee and their engineers have failed to fix it.

Any suggestions or help greatfully received.

Martin

[admin]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

1st let me say that I’m not an expert on Samsung fridges, but I am system trained on fridges with quite a few years experience..

But over the last few years we are unable to cure the fault of the fridge evaporator icing over to the extent the fridge recirc fan goes noisy because of ice build up. Defrosting cures it for a while, thoroughly cleaning out the drain tube helps extend the time before it reappears.

IMO its the design of the water run off (or lack of it) whilst on defrost cycle that retains too much water in the resevoir, which freezes over and commences the “build up”

I don’t know how to cure this, If someone does (other than throwing the unit in a skip and buying a decent one) I’d love to read the post.

Make sure you retain all visits by an engineer and that all details such as fault and work done are recorded, if you intend to try involve Comet in out of guarantee repairs that you consider recalls of faults whilst in guarantee, minefield.

Kevin

[mks]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

Kevin,
Thanks, this tends to confirm that the problem is with the design rather than a fault with my particular unit. But it seemed to work fine for the first 10 months an now only works for around two weeks before than fan goes noisy.
I could live with defrosting it every 10 months but not every two weeks
I will be calling Comet out again as it is still under guarantee but I’m not sure where we go after that. Actually nothing they have done has made any difference anyway. I know they did clean the drain hole below the fan, but I wonder where that goes afterwards, there is a foil tray at the base of the defrost element, I don’t know where it goes after that. It must go somewhere as I don’t get any water on the floor when I defrost it. I believe this would normally be routed to the top of the compressor where it is evaporated.

Could it be that the defrost cycle is not happening, ie no power ever gets to the defrost element?

Is there a way for the engineer to do some kind of system check or diagnostic to tell whether any parts are at fault?

Martin

[admin]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

Hi,

within the electronics will be a test routine that the engineer who has access to the tech info can run and interupt the results. This level of info is not available to us, indies, who are not authorised to cary out repairs by Samaung.

You could ask the comet engineer who comes just what training he has had on the Samaung range of appliances. If lacking, that gives you another front to approach Comet on, why they are not training their engineers etc etc.

Whilst the appliance has sensors, thermistors, defrost element and a controlling timer (built into the control module) they would all be measurable if, of course, the tech data actually states what the readings should be. I think we are back to the old chestnut of “tech data and training”. Without it most engineers will struggle or get lucky.

Call Comet and quiz the engineer whilst he is in your home, see what you can wring out of him.

Kevin

[mks]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

Kevin,
Thanks. So far my view of the Comet engineers is decidedly poor. They certainly don’t seem to have good product knowledge and don’t seem to have had any method in what they have done.

The fan is noisy lets replace it
We can’t do anything else, how about the defrost element (me), (comet) ok lets replace that etc.

Anyway the engineer is coming out again on 4th. Meantime I will be writing a detailed letter of complaint to Comet. Interesting when I spoke to Comet today to book the Engineer they also said that once it is out of guarantee thats it, even if they haven’t fixed the problem, this can’t be right, time to involve my solicitor or citizens advice I think.

[djrefman]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

hi there,
i have a problem witha samsung and they dont provide tech info to anyone which complicates the issue and i wonder if they actually supply it to comet? anyway,
there is a possibillity that it is pulling air up the drain tube if it does not have a p trap on it and also if there is a drip tray and drain tube heater which most frost free units have.worth checking if they are working

I dont know samsung machines in particular, i am generalising with frost free machines hope this helps.

[Dal5band]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

Hello mks, did you get the Samsung ff problem resolved ? I have the exact same problem.
FF is 13 months old, started by the chilled water getting frozen. Defrosted the water chiller pipe/tank in the back of the fridge, twice so far. Now the fan has gone noisy. Fan stops when you open the fridge so it is definatley the fan. The fridge temp. is behaving erratically.

About to call Comet but found this forum so any background info would be useful.

[gazza57]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

ladies and gentlemen please be aware samsung give you a 2 year parts and labour warranty on these side/sides. as for comet engineers “i cannot comment” rgds gazza

[gazr600]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

Hi ALL
The problem is due to a faulty fridge evaporator sensor or evaporator heater in fridge section being open circuit

[DaveBrown]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

Hi ALL
The problem is due to a faulty fridge evaporator sensor or evaporator heater in fridge section being open circuit

Can anyone verify this?

[Tekkytyke]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

I Have a RS21 DCNS1 that started with a noisy fan and water dispenser failure in November of last year. Since then I have had repeated visits from an ‘Expert care’ – hah! -engineer who has replaced the circuit board, the water tank which had frozen and split etc, and still not fixed it. Every time he replaces something there is a 2-3 week delay before he tries something else. After repeated phone calls to Samsung it was referred to their HO and it has been with them for 2-3 weeks now and I keep getting courtesy calls from some call centre somewhere but No progress. Coming up to FOUR MONTHS now without a working fridge. We keep it slightly cool by using loads of ice from the ice maker but worried about hygene as teperature in upper part of fridge shows 13-15 mpst of the time even though the front panel shows 4C.
Not a happy bunny and beyond just wanting it repairing now as mould starting to develop!. Soon will have to stop using it altogether. SAMSUNG = PANTS!! Customer care is non existent!! Another week and its ‘Watchdog’ methinks! Wonder how many others have this problem – is it something Samsung are trying to keep a lid on 😈

[3stars]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

I have experience of Samsung appliances and it seems that a lot of engineers assume that any defrost cycle fault must be the PCB. If ice is building up on either evaporator (side by side models) it is usually caused by either the Thermal fuse (open circuit), defrost NTC termination sensor (yellow wires) out of calibration or a faulty defrost heater.

One of the most common symptoms of a defrost cycle componet failure is that the appliance works for 6 – 8 hours and then stops working, the temp displayed will be -20 & +3 but food will spoil in the freezer. If the appliance is unplugged and reconnected it will run fine for 6-8 hours.

The reason for this is the temp display always shows an average temp, during the defrost cycle the temp shown will be the average temp prior to defrost.

If the defrost heater or thermal fuse is faulty no heat will be generated during the defrost cycle and so the defrost termination sensor is waiting for the temp of the evaporator to rise, so the unit sits waiting for the temp to rise, if the door is not opened this will take hours.

If the appliance is disconnected from the mains the PCB will reset and work fine until the next scheduled defrost cycle.

[DaveBrown]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

So,

Can we assume that these last two posts are saying that the problem isn’t with the evaporator sensor or evaporator heater? Has any body with the symptons that this thread was opened with had either of these two components changed?

I have this exact fault – noisy fan, leading to frozen water dispenser.

I two have had the engineer out to defrost my fridge, only to have the fault re-occur.

The fridge has starting being noisey again – iceing up again!

I’m looking to call the engineer out again and would like to tell him that particular components are broke – it would be nice to point him in the direction of the evaporator heater and sensor and hopefully after not spending too much money (out of warranty) get a working fridge again.

Dave Brown

[Dal5band]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

I had this problem (freezing water & noisy fan). Had to switch off for 24hrs, leave fridge door open and then it would run for about a week.

Comet came yesterday and changed the bottom back panel in the fridge section. This already had a fan in it. Took about 1/2 hour as we had already defrosted the frige. ( If frozen, the panel is stuck solid to the cooler coils – do not force).

They said the polystyrene in the panel gets water-logged and during defrost, the water remains in the panel and refreezes. The dfrost system cannot cope and the whole thing gradually gets iced up – hence noisy fan. The new panel has proofed polystrene. It had £129 sticker but ours was under guarantee.

See how it goes – will report back.

[3stars]

Re: SAMSUNG RS21DCSV1/XEU recurring fault or not fixed?

Hi Dave

If you call out an eng ensure all the defrost components are checked if all is ok next step would be the evap cover.

The refrigerator evaporator cover has been modified with a larger vent/drain hole just below the fan to ensure any defrost water is removed, the fan has also been improved with better shaft seals to prevent moisture ingress.

[Author]

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