WRX988SIBM01 Whirlpool Refrigerator Not cooling enough

[higgins909]

Model Number

WRX988SIBM01

Brand

Whirlpool

Age

6-10 years

So I think the 4 door french door fridge is from 2014 and after a few years some of the lights stopped worked. No freezer light and a couple are out in different spots in the top of the fridge. I recently tried to clean out the coil and pretty much didn't clean much as the coil is kinda coated in a layer of dust and the vacuum couldn't do anything about that. Recently fixed the water inlet valve as that was broken. Got the ice maker turned back on. The ice maker seems to be very slow and ice quality is poor. I haven't seen it filled up all the way once as we keep using it and putting it on fast ice which is still really slow. Ever since I think the temperature has gotten worse.

I've checked multiple fans and they all seem to be working. Set to -5 Freeze and 37 Fridge, the lowest it will go, iirc. Freezer has been from 10-20F and fridge 40-50F. Ever since fixing the valve and getting the ice maker up, my ice cream has be even more melty/soft. Found another post here saying that freezer temp is normal and I disagree. I'm thinking it's either something to do with defrost or the thermostat? I think I can only hear fans running most of the time but every once in a while the compressor will run for a while (unsure how long) and you can here it "dropping the clutch" as if it thinks it hasn't turned on or something.

I've tried to take apart the freezer door to look further inside and it seems impossible. Can't find a video on it.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that I tried the recommended temps for a day or so and then one day switched them back to the lowest settings and as soon as I hit confirm, the compressor kicked on. So it knows that it's holding a temperature and it needs to go lower but it's actually not going low enough?

Freezer/fridge, not cold enough.
Ice maker, slow, melty, never full.
Some lights are out, freezer all, fridge some.
All fans seem to work, compressor fan, fridge, freezer... Maybe the ice maker.
Compressor will run 10+ minutes? Dropping the clutch every once in a while.

 

[higgins909]

I would like to add after listening to it. The compressor was running pretty loud for about a hour, maybe a hour and a half and then stopped for about a half hour and then was back on again. Today when I got home, I pulled out some of my melty ice cream and when I put it back, you could hear the compressor turn on quietly and then speed up slightly after a minute or so. No where near as loud as it was before. Maybe I'm confusing these noises?

 

[Jake]

Recently fixed the water inlet valve as that was broken.

Ever since fixing the valve and getting the ice maker up, my ice cream has be even more melty/soft.

That's very strange, because fixing the water inlet valve should not effect the temperatures.

I would like to add after listening to it. The compressor was running pretty loud for about a hour, maybe a hour and a half and then stopped for about a half hour and then was back on again. Today when I got home, I pulled out some of my melty ice cream and when I put it back, you could hear the compressor turn on quietly and then speed up slightly after a minute or so. No where near as loud as it was before. Maybe I'm confusing these noises?

Its possibly the compressor or compressor inverter board starting to fail.

Rick talked about this issue in this thread:

FIXED - WRX988SIBM03 - Refrigerator not cooling, no ice, turns off intermittently

Hello, I'm trying to diagnose my refrigerator problems. Our first symptom was hollow ice cubes followed by no ice. We turned off ice maker because we rarely used it and wanted to delay any repair costs. Recently we tried using it again and within a few hours of turning on the ice maker the...

www.applianceblog.com

Your model uses the same exact same compressor inverter board:
WPW10154805 Invrtr-Box


Jake