I have a Kenmore microwave (721.68280790, mfgd 1997) that has worked flawlessly until a week or so ago. Symptoms are that when the door is opened, the light turns on, the turntable rotates and the fan operates. The humming associated with the magnetron is not present (mercifully!). If the oven is operated normally - food in the oven, some cook time entered on th panel and START pressed - the unit works fine. Light, turntable and fan all turn off at the end of the cook time. But when you open the door, they all turn on.

I've thought about the door interlock switch but I can't figure out how to open up the chassis of the unit to check this. So my first question is how to open up the unit and the second is a probable place to look for this problem.

Thanks!

Well, within a couple hours of posting my problem, I went back to the invalid to see if a fresh start would help. It did. After having removed all the obvious screws, a gentle lift of the rear of the case freed it very easily. Don’t know why I didn't happen on that earlier. Then what was in a sleeve inside the machine but a sheet with a schematic and as set of switch diagnostic instructions.

Since one of the door interlock switches was the probable problem, I checked them out and, yes, the primary interlock tested bad. It was closed with the door both open and shut. So I removed the switch and on checking it again, it appeared to work correctly ouside the machine. So I reinstalled it and, yep, it now worked just fine! I call this the "appliance phenomenon" - taking something apart and then reassembling it as often as not fixes the problem.

I'm a happy camper...

Glad you got it fixed.

I know nothing about fixing microwaves, hopefully we can get a tech. to help us in this area.

Jake

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