The short answer
A cabinet that is dark and silent is nearly always a supply problem: the outlet, the breaker or the cord. A cabinet with working lights that will not cool is a start-relay, control or compressor question, and only the first checks on that branch belong to the owner.
Read these first
- No interior light, no display, nothing — Power is not arriving; start at the outlet.
- Lights and display normal, compressor silent — Power is fine and the start circuit is the question.
- A click every few minutes, then silence — The classic overload cycling pattern on a compressor that cannot start.
- The breaker trips as soon as the cabinet is plugged in — Stop there; that is an electrical fault and not a diagnosis to keep repeating.
- Display lit but showing a service indication — The board has an opinion, and it belongs on the controls page.
- Not this fault: it runs constantly but does not cool — That is the cooling-failure page, not this one.
Ranked for a cabinet of this age and type
- Outlet dead, breaker tripped or cord unseated — First, and the reason every technician checks it before anything else. A ground-fault outlet shared with a countertop circuit is a frequent culprit.
- Compressor start relay or overload protector failed — Second. It is the part that clicks, and it is a common failure on cabinets that have run for years.
- Control board output or a failed thermistor reading — Third: the board never calls for cooling, so nothing starts even though power is present.
- Demo or showroom mode left enabled — Uncommon but instantly fixable, and it produces a lit cabinet that never cools.
- Compressor seized — Last. It is rare and it is the one verdict an owner cannot act on.
Check in this sequence
- Prove the outlet with something else — A lamp in the same socket answers the whole first branch.
- Look for a tripped breaker or a reset button on the receptacle — Two seconds each, and both are common.
- Wait out the compressor delay before judging a silent cabinet — It prevents a false verdict that costs a call-out.
- Listen for a click repeating every few minutes — That sound moves the diagnosis to the start circuit.
What an owner can do
- Plug a lamp or a phone charger into the same outlet — Names or clears the supply in one move.
Tools: lampAbout 5 min
- Reset the breaker once, and the receptacle if it has a reset button — Once only: a breaker that trips again is telling you something.
About 10 min
- Push the plug fully home and check the cord for damage where it passes the cabinet — Cords chafe where a cabinet has been pushed back repeatedly.
About 10 min
- Leave the cabinet powered and undisturbed for a quarter of an hour — Lets the start delay expire so you judge the machine and not the timer.
About 15 min
- Stop at the point where the rear access panel would have to come off — The relay and the compressor terminals live behind it and are a service job.
Electrical caution
Safety
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before removing any panel. A capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. Do not reset a breaker repeatedly: a breaker that trips again is doing its job, and forcing it is how an appliance fault becomes a house fire. Never run a refrigerator through a light-duty extension lead.
When to hand it over
Call when the outlet is proven good and the cabinet still will not run, because the next steps are at the compressor terminals. Call immediately if the breaker trips whenever the cabinet is connected, if you smell hot insulation, or if the click-and-silence pattern repeats, because a compressor that keeps attempting to start under a failed relay heats up with every attempt.
Other faults on this cabinet
What this page leaves to a narrower one
Written for the appliance class under this badge and not for a single family or model line. A family-specific or model-specific page, where one exists, is the more precise answer and is linked below. Not included here: relay part identifiers, compressor terminal layouts, board connector maps and the service-mode entry sequences that differ by family.
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
