My fridge has been very loud for probably a month. I was pretty sure it was going to be the compressor, because Samsung fridges are lousy with compressor issues. The the type of sound was a loud, mechanical buzzing. After playing around with a frequency generator, it sounded about 120 Hz. That wasn’t a diagnostic tool, I looked it up just now to try to convey the noise to you.
Anyway, after pulling the fridge out and getting my ears back there, it was clearly not the compressor. But it was coming from the bottom of the fridge. So, it pretty much had to be the blower in the freezer. The hardest part was getting the drawer out. I saw tutorials where they just lift out the plastic bins, and there was no way I could get mine out. Mine did not fit out when the drawer was pulled out. I checked the manual. It says they just lift out. The manual also had dimensions of the drawer when pulled out, and I found my drawer was short by 6 inches! The stupid telescopic rails were stuck! I gave it a really good yank, and the drawer pulled out the entire 21 inches. I have no idea how long we have not had full drawer access. Makes getting ice cubes out a lot easier.
So, got it pulled apart, found the blower. Tested that it was the noise. It was. And I looked for a replacement. The OEM blower assembly was $143! I was taken aback. I found a third party blower on Amazon for $25. Went with that. That came last night, and I installed it during lunch today. Took 45 minutes.
I have a neighbor with nearly the same fridge, that had nearly the same issue. Except it was the circulating blower in the upper fridge portion. His wife insisted they call Samsung to come out for the repair. It cost them $1000.
Fuck Samsung.* I have never owned a product with more absolutely blatant and egregious planned obsolescence than a Samsung front-loading washing machine. One day it started making a horrible banging noise and the drum stopped spinning. I replaced the machine (with a cheap used Bosch off Craigslist that’s still going strong, BTW), stuck the broken Samsung in my basement, and eventually took it apart to salvage parts and also see what went wrong. As it turns out, the “spider arm,” the support bracket and bearing that attaches the drum to the motor that spins it, had corroded to the point that it broke apart, only a year or two out of warranty.
And that’s when I realized the worst part of this story: every other piece of water-exposed metal in the machine was stainless steel, and was pristine. The spider arm, on the other hand, was made of, IDK, zinc or some shit. In other words, they made the main support bracket, which basically destroys the entire machine when it fails, into the GODDAMNED SACRIFICIAL ANODE!!!
(* I almost said “fuck Samsung in general, and their appliances in particular,” but their electronics are designed just as evilly, e.g. by being infested with DRM and ads.)
Wow. That is insane. They spent extra time engineering it to fail in a specific time frame, it looks like! Just awful. Looking up some pictures of those, they just seem to crumble! Awful design. Yeah, I’m not too keen on Samsung products either. Hopefully by the time I replace this fridge, I will be able to find something better in this size.