The short answer
On a Maytag cooktop, F42 points at the control board. What the manufacturer documents is in the table; what to check first is in the ranking under it. A cycle that still completes normally is safe to run; a cycle that stops part-way is not.
The documented code and its meaning
Reference| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| F42 | There may be a problem with the Cooktop Power Control Board, or the associated wiring. |
What you actually observe
- The code clears after a power-down and returns later — That pattern is the most useful single observation you can record.
- Settings are accepted but nothing follows them — The panel takes the input and the machine does not act on it.
- The display flickers or resets by itself during a cycle — A control losing its supply mid-cycle restarts and reports what it found.
- NEAR MISS — nothing lights up at all — A completely dead panel is a supply question rather than a control fault, and it belongs on a different page.
Causes, most likely first on this cooktop
- A connector backing out of its header on the board — Years of expansion and contraction ease a plug clear of its pins; the control loses the signal while the connector still looks home.
- A cracked solder joint or a scorched relay pad on the board itself — Boards fail at their heaviest joints first, so the fault often follows a particular function rather than killing the whole control.
- Worn or pinched harness insulation on the run to the driven part — A harness routed against a sharp edge wears through slowly, which is why this code often starts as an occasional event and becomes permanent.
- A supply disturbance that left the board in a stuck state — A brown-out or a spike can leave the logic parked in a state it has no exit from, and only a complete loss of supply gets it out.
Check in this order, and why
- Drop the power completely and bring it back up — It costs nothing, and it is the one test that tells a stuck state apart from a hardware fault.
- Watch whether the code returns immediately or only under load — Immediate return versus return under load is the cleanest split available without instruments.
- Have the run between board and part inspected end to end — The wiring is cheaper to fix than the board and fails more often than the board does.
- Leave the board itself for last — The board is the dearest item in the chain and the least likely single cause, which makes it the wrong place to open a wallet.
What an owner can safely check
- Cut the power at the breaker for a full minute, then restore it — Cancel does not do it. The breaker also takes away the standby rail, and that is what lets a latched state go.
About 3 min
- Record the point in the cycle where the code appears — A note of the setting and how far the cycle reached saves a whole diagnostic visit.
Tools: pen and paperAbout 5 min
- Check that nothing has been spilled or cleaned into the control area — Liquid tracking across a board produces intermittent faults that look exactly like a failed part.
Tools: flashlightAbout 5 min
Before anything is opened
Safety
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before removing any panel — a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. On most installations there is no plug: the cooktop is wired in, and the breaker is the isolation point. Treat the glass as hot well after the display says the zones are off. Leave every safety switch wired as it was found. Each one interrupts power somewhere the design needs it interrupted.
When this stops being an owner job
Call once the power-down has been tried and the code comes straight back. After that the next move is behind a panel, and a countertop unit has to be freed from the cutout before anything under the glass is reachable. Whatever the timing above, a burning smell, visible scorching or a tripping breaker means the appliance goes off at the breaker and the call goes in today.
Nearest error-code pages
What this page does not cover
This is the platform-level reading of F42: it holds for the Maytag cooktop families that share that control generation. It does not cover older generations that reuse the same characters for something else, and it deliberately carries no wiring colours, no connector pin numbers, no torque figures and no part numbers, because every one of those differs by family. Where a page exists for your specific family or model, that page is the more specific answer and it is the one to follow; the code index linked below is where those pages are listed.
Other Maytag cooktop codes
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Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
