Samsung Refrigerator Noisy Fan – Quick Fix

I have a Samsung RF28HMEDBSR french door refrigerator that’s only a few years old.

Several months ago, I started to notice a mild clicking sound coming from it occasionally. The sound would always stop as soon as I opened the door, and then usually restart a little while after closing the door. In the past few days, the noise got considerably louder. It became clear that the sound was coming from a fan that was inside the refrigerator compartment. It started sounding like a fan whose blades were hitting something. Then this morning, it became unbearably loud.. like there was an airplane inside my kitchen!

I thought maybe the fan bearings were just dry and needed oil. After doing a lot of research on the Internet, I figured out that the evaporator fan, which circulates cool air inside the refrigerator, was probably the culprit. It turns out that ice builds up on the evaporator (due to bad design of the defrost circuit), and eventually hits the fan blades, causing the racket.  The evaporator fan is a box fan that’s attached to the evaporator cover in the back of the fridge, behind where it says Twin Cooling:

The fan looks like this:

The proper fix is to remove everything from the refrigerator, take out all the drawers and shelves, remove the evaporator cover, and then melt the ice. I didn’t have time to do this today, and just wanted to silence the racket, so I decided to try a quick hack. The ice build up usually occurs on the coolant pipes feeding the evaporator. Notice how there are two large oblong air holes in the evaporator cover (see above photo), above Twin Cooling. The coolant pipes are approximately behind the air slot on the right.

I decided to try blowing hot air into the air slots, to melt some of the ice enough so that it wouldn’t hit the fan anymore. It’s important not to blow air that’s so hot that it melts the plastic cover. I set my dryer to high, and then pointed it at my hand, adjusting the distance so that the air was just a little too hot for me to tolerate. Then I aimed it at the intake slots, at about the same distance, and alternated blowing air into them, 10 seconds at a time, for 2 minutes:

Voila! The noise is completely gone! When I have more time, I will do the proper fix, taking the evaporator cover off, and melt the ice that’s covering the evaporator. Most likely, there’s a lot of ice back there, which blocks air flow to the evaporator, reducing the efficiency of the refrigerator, which wastes electricity, and in the worst case, keeps it from cooling properly. I will make a post in the future, documenting the process as I go.

In the meantime, if you want to tackle the proper fix yourself, here are some YouTube videos which are helpful:

At about 4:35 in the video above, the guy has a good hack for preventing the issue from ever happening again. He moves the temperature sensor for defrosting from the inlet to the outlet pipe of the evaporator, which extends the defrost cycle.

UPDATE 2020-05-20: It’s been almost 3 years since I applied the temperature sensor moving hack described above, and I haven’t had a recurrence of the noisy fan, so it works well as a permanent fix!

The video below gives a lot more details on disassembly procedures:

Service ManualRF28HMEDBSR Service Manual

72 thoughts on “Samsung Refrigerator Noisy Fan – Quick Fix”

  1. Tried this today after I had to use the power cool because the fridge door was left open. The condensation must’ve frozen and the fan was so loud. Worked like a charm!

  2. thank u, thank u, thank u. thought about trying hair dryer to those slots but needed ur post to give it a try. Finally got rid of that helicopter landing in my kitchen!

  3. I have a slightly different model BUT this hack works. Mine was the freezer fan. Thank you for saving me a ton of money on a service call.

    1. Where is the freezer fan located? Is it possible to do this same hack with the hairdryer? I don’t have exact model but similar Samsung French doors bottom drawer freezer. And the noise stops when you open the freezer

  4. The bottom line is to never buy Samsung again. Stick with GE n Maytag brands. I have the same problem and Samsung doesn’t covered the cost for their shitty product. I’m so pissed off with Samsung that they missed leading consumer for their shitty product

  5. OMG! I hate this refrigerator! It is the most expensive piece of shit that I ever purchased. Samsung could care less. They are aware of all these issues and refuse to do anything about it. My fridge sounds like a small airplane ready to take off. Multiple repairs but no fix!

  6. My teenage son after helping me with removing the ice twice told me that the flap that is between the doors in the fridge part was not closing the gap when we closed the door. we got that working and have not had an issue with the freeze up since.

  7. this is the worst issue that keeps happning-I paid 200.00 a month ago to fix it an now it is making the worst sound again.. I did the hair dyer for a quick fix- how long will that last–what about the forced DF mode?

    1. For me hair dryer fix only lasts a few days at a time. I haven’t tried forced DF mode. If you try it and it works, let me know.
      I took it apart and found a big chunk of ice hitting the fan, where normal defrosting wouldn’t get to it. What a lousy design. I haven’t had time to document it, but I took photos. If you want to tackle it, perhaps I could throw up a quick post w/ less detail than usual.

  8. Going to try the hack tommorow by placing the temp sensor on the output pipe of the evaporator. What is the theory behind this workaround? Has anyone had a good long term outcome with this fix?

    1. I did it when I wrote the article. It’s still working well. No more freeze ups. The hack makes the defroster defrost more thoroughly. It probably increases energy usage a bit

      1. I tried changing the temp sensor back on august 12-ish. Im not sure if it was the right pipe-i just followed the videos lead BUT I noticed he put the sensor on one pipe then changed it to another pipe…. I followed his end move. i got a freeze up in less than a month this time so either the fix is not a fix OR I put the sensor on the wrong pipe… SOoooo since I am “defrosting” today I am going to try the other pipe….. If I don’t write back you will know I succeeded…… or bought a NONsamsung fridge. what a bunch of crooks…..
        HAPPY Sunday!!

    1. No idea, I don’t know that model, but if your temp sensor is clipped on the same way, it should work

  9. Thank you!!! My only regret is not reading this until after I had taken all of the food out of the fridge.

  10. My Four year old Samsung started making the loud noise everyone is talking about. Sure is discussing to buy a refrigerator that doesn’t last. I wii never buy another Samsung product again!

  11. Just as in the clip it was iced up and after melting the ice away I found that the seal around the tubing was letting air in causing the ice to form.. I put some silicone around the tube to seal it..

  12. Blow dryer works, but is a temporary fix since it treats only the symptom of Samsung’s flawed design, rather than cause. A much easier temporary fix is to simultaneously press “Freezer” and “Lighting” on front panel of fridge and hold (8 seconds on my fridge) until it beeps. Release, and press “Freezer” repeatedly (three times for my model) until it displays “rd” (rear defrost). This manually activates the rear defroster, and your fridge will beep annoyingly for awhile (about 27 minutes on my fridge). I usually repeat this process 4-6 times in a row, setting my phone timer for 27 minutes to keep reminding me to go and restart it. This fix usually lasts me a couple of weeks. If you remember to do it frequently, on a preventative basis–say, before going to work or to bed, you may stay ahead of the problem.

  13. At this time of the Coronavirous our State is on lockdown with a stay at home order. This video was an absolute life saver. Thank you so much!!

  14. I took the entire thing apart , defrosted the ice and put it back together and it’s STILL making this noise every time the fan kicks on. It’s beyond annoying. 100% not ice. The fan is hitting something else. Any ideas?

    FTR- Samsung appliances are complete garbage as is their Customer Service. They won’t cover anything. Stay away if possible.

    1. Are you sure it’s the same fan? It should have been easy to test and make sure that the blades weren’t hitting anything else before you put it back together.
      Maybe it’s hitting its own wires? Just making a wild guess here.

    2. Had identical problem. Ice was forming in exactly the same place! Ice hitting the fan is causing the noise. Tried many of the same fixes that others tried, including moving the thermistor, installing new defrost tubes, and attaching the longer defrost drain clip. Finally realized the problem was caused by a missing mullion spring (about $5).

      Allow me to elaborate. The ice is forming in the upper right hand corner due to the fact that the evaporator fan is sucking in hot air. The intake is in exactly this location. There is probably nothing wrong with your defrost function, other than not being able to keep up with the large amounts of hot air being introduced. Hot air will ice up on the coils very quickly, which is why you should never leave your fridge doors open for very long. This is especially important with Samsung “twin cooling” refrigerators, which have evaporator coils in both the fridge and freezer compartments. Conventional refrigerators only have coils in the freezer section; the cold air is blown over to the fridge compartment by a fan.

      In any case, I finally discovered the source of my hot air. The center mullion was not coming all the way forward when the doors were closed. YOU CANNOT SEE THE PROBLEM FROM THE OUTSIDE! From the outside, the doors appear to be completely sealed: top, bottom, and sides. Even the center seems to be ok, but that is where the problem lies. I only discovered the problem after much trial and error. After closing the left door by itself (the one with the mullion attached), I noticed that I could still pull the mullion towards me about 1/8″ or so. That meant that I had a huge gap along the entire center of the french doors–the source of my hot air was finally revealed. I purchased a spring at amazon.com for about $5 (mine was actually missing) and the install took 60 seconds.

      (I had been struggling with this problem for about 3 months. Initially, I did not think it was the spring, because my mullion retracted properly when the doors were opened. However, the gap occurred when the doors were closed. Apparently, some models have both internal and external springs. My external spring was the one that was “missing.”)

      My 12-year-old fridge is now working great now! Saved $2000! I hope this post will be useful to others…

      1. Wow, glad you figured it out. But if there was a hot air leak, didn’t the temperature on the door always read higher than what you set it to?

  15. Thanks for the video. I did this today and hopeful that it works. Feels like ti should but after reading all these comments about Samsung fridges………
    mine was all frozen up, took 20 mintues with hot hairdryer to melt it all away. Some of the styrofoam was frozen to the inside and broke but I was able to glue back together. Hoping the noise is gone and this 5 yr old fridge gets another 5 !! Thanks again.

  16. Thanks!!! Just melting the ice now with a low powered heat gun. If this issue is so common with Samsung fridges, Samsung should really RMA them all-before someone files a lawsuit.

  17. I have the same problem as did WJS. I took it apart and no ice build up but still have the fan noise problem! I don’t feel like the fan blades are hitting anything, but confident that it is the fan. Should the fan be replaced? Super annoying…please help!!

    1. If you suspect that the fan is making noise by itself, just run the fan directly, outside of the refrigerator, and see if it still makes noise.
      Also, you can try applying some oil to the bearing. Sorry, I don’t have access to one w/o taking my refrigerator apart, but often, the back of the shaft and bearing are accessible in similar fans when you remove the sticker on the back.

  18. Has anyone tried insulating the tubes/fan area better to it doesn’t allow the frost to build up? maybe spray foam?

    1. Try the hack described in the first video linked in the article.. moving the temperature sensor. I did it 3 years ago, and haven’t had any recurrence of the problem.

  19. thank you thank you!!! Ours has a lot of ice build up. We defrosted it then the noise started. Hair dryer worked like a charm!

  20. Anyone have the problem of the ice machine forming/building up ice in the mechanism thus stopping normal ice formation? I have to chip it out of the way….about one a month now.

    I have also noticed when I push the control to get ice, often times I first get some water dropping out, like an ice cube melted before I get the regular distribution of ice.

    I think there is a door seal problem some where but I’m not sure. Just speculation.

    Thank you in advance.

    1. Yes, my ice maker freezes up, too. Chipping it out doesn’t last long for me. I use a hair dryer to melt all of the ice away

  21. Just defrosted and moved the defrost sensor as seen in videos…Fingers crossed. Thank you for the video.

  22. Can anyone else confirm that this hack is a long term fix? And I mean the “full” hack- removing the back panel, removing all ice AND moving the sensor as shown in the video. I’ve thawed out the ice twice before, but it has returned, after about 8 months and then less than 2 months. Now this time I moved the sensor as well, and I’m hoping that can make it a long term or dare I say permanent fix! Any other long term success stories with moving the sensor?

  23. Have a Samsung RF25HMEDBSR fridge bought in 2015 what a mistake what a piece of crap.The ice maker leaks and freezes (3 service calls) fan noise do to ice built up (3 service calls) control board replaced (1 service call) and bent door hinge on delivery (1 service call) extended warranty runs out in November of this year. Who can afford service calls and parts on this anchor. Do yourself a big favor stay away from Samsung they do no stand behind their appliances.

  24. I have a 2015 Samsung like the video that has been icing up all the time, So I followed the video which was great because I would not of known how to take it apart. Took it apart and defrosted it and moved the sensor as like the video Fired her up and so far so good. We were already planning to buy a new one but hopefully not anymore. Thankyou for posting such a well explained video

    1. So same issue; as soon as you open the freezer door the sound stops. All we had to do is pull the cover off the back and disgustingly found out the fan was caked in dust and lint!! We vacuumed it and the noise stopped instantly!!

  25. i did the ” move the temp sensor to the outer pipe” hack , worked for about 3 months then started same ole crap again. now it wont work at all and refreezes every other day! so sorry this “fix” isnt a fix at all!

  26. I defrosted with a hairdryer and moved the sensor, 8 weeks ago… now its making the noise and ice is forming around the fan again… so just defrosted the area again and move the sensor back to original location. I also noticed a few cracks in the back wall of the fridge so I siliconed them up as this might be drawing in moist hot air from the rear of the fridge

  27. Thank you so much! I tried the hairdryer hack and it stopped the extremely annoying clicking sound. I will try the permanent fix next. Again, thanks!

  28. I had the same issue with the fan blade hitting ice build up. The repair man replaced the whole back panel and a couple week later, it sounded like a compressor was running in the kitchen. It was so loud, I thought we would go deaf. When I opened the fridge door, the nose stopped and I could hear the fan spin 3-4 times to a stop, hitting ice. Today repairman was back, removed back panel and the top right area was total ice build up as well as ice on the fan. There was also a light brown liquid down the right side as well as all along the bottom of the area the panel covers. The light brown stuff is oil that leaked. When that happens, the fridge is done. The oil leak will cause the fridge not to thaw or not keep the fridge cold enough. I noticed the brown stuff when the young guy diagnosed it as the panel needing replaced. Not sure he was aware of what the brown stuff was because it was the owner of the repair company that came today and looked at it and explained the oil issue. Having to defrost a frost free fridge tells you there’s definitely something wrong. I have the extended warranty so hopefully this 3 yr old fridge gets replaced.

  29. Tried the relocation fix in the video and was hopefully. 3 weeks later same issue (fan baldes hitting ice. This time the ice isn’t viable from the top 2 holes but from the middle vent holes so I’ll take it apart and see if anything is different. So not a fix for me yes 😉 here’s to hoping

  30. Tried the relocation fix in the video and was hopefully. 3 weeks later same issue (fan baldes hitting ice. This time the ice isn’t viable from the top 2 holes but from the middle vent holes so I’ll take it apart and see if anything is different. So not a fix for me yet 😉 I have now defrosted it again and loved the sensor to a different pipe and will report back if it lasts longer

  31. We have same problem but no ice build-up. we removed the fan and it is not hitting anything and works perfectly until we put it back in the freezer. Wondering if we should replace the fan. Fridge is just over 1 year old and no extended warranty. Samsung would not help us

    1. Have you tried just squirting a little bit of machine oil on the fan bearings? That often quiets a noisy fan. Try connecting up the fan w/o reinstalling it. If it still rattles when it’s not installed, then you have the culprit.. replace the fan.

  32. Same issue with fan noise from evaporator icing. Turned off water to frig yesterday. Still noise. Thinking if I defrost evaporator ice, no new ice can form with no water coming into frig? I’m ok without ice maker.
    Thanks for your opinion. Micky

    1. I don’t think turning off the ice maker will help. Evaporator icing is caused by condensation of moisture in the air. The ice maker doesn’t add that much moisture. But you can try.

      1. Hi – What I mean is I turned off the water source to the frig (shut off the valve). No water at all coming into frig. Therefore, can’t ice up if no water in there. Understood that I won’t have ice cubes anymore, but that’s better than the constant fan noise. Any issues doing that? Thanks

      2. I have a Samsung rfg28mesl and the freezer won’t work properly, it freezes but not completely and then it defrosts. I unpacked all my foods into my other freezer and switched it one a couple of hours ago. It makes this annoying loud noise, but it can’t be because of ice that’s probably blocking some fan since it has been off and is completely defrosted. Why is my freezer not working? What could possibly be the problem? Please help.

        1. first, you need to figure out what’s the “annoying loud noise.” need a more detailed description of when it happens, where it’s coming from, what it sounds like, etc

  33. Hi – What I mean is I turned off the water source to the frig (shut off the valve). No water at all coming into frig. Therefore, can’t ice up if no water in there. Understood that I won’t have ice cubes anymore, but that’s better than the constant fan noise. Any issues doing that? Thanks

    1. No, there is always moisture in the air, unless you live in a very dry desert, so you’re still going to get condensation. Like I said, it’s doubtful that the ice maker will add enough moisture to make a difference. But try it out, maybe you’ll prove me wrong! There’s no harm in turning off the water supply to the ice maker.

  34. In hopes to help and maybe clarify for a frustrated DIYer:

    MAYBE we’re collectively experiencing this issue during significant increase of being in and out of the fridge (seasonal), or failing door seals? For US here, we have 3 children accessing the fridge, now old enough, that were not, until about 9 months ago. For now, I’ve removed their permissions from doing so, while assessing if I’ve actually “fixed” the problem! 🙂

    Our Samsung (manuf. 2016) french door fridge (bottom freezer slideout) started showing issue of not being ‘cold enough’ in the fridge. I had noticed intermittent clicking (almost quiet ‘popping’) when all the family was in bed (probably not intermittent; instead noticed when house was QUIET enough to hear it! lol)…this was while fridge closed, during normal operation.
    After calling a reputable local appliance technician, and being informed of inability to schedule within a six weeks, as well as quoted likely repair costs, we considered buying a replacement fridge and counting this as a loss.

    I’M THANKFUL to have found this forum and other videos online to tackle it myself.

    By the time I had a day to tear into it, the proverbial rear fan clicking had become prominent, and would stop a few seconds after opening either/both french door(s)…so I knew the ice-build had grown to soon-damaging/costly levels. I considered using a heat gun/hair dryer as suggested numerous times herein, but KNEW the problem would recur ‘that much’ quicker if not fully remedied, plus I wanted to verify what was ‘going on’ behind that “Twin Cool” panel…I needed to clean our fridge interior anyway, so I went all-in.

    May I suggest BE CAREFUL when removing the (Twin Cool) panel cover. Mine was so iced-up behind, that the ice had wrapped/locked onto the styrofoam backing, and thus partly separated from the plastic cover…so I stopped tugging, and more-patiently heated the panel, ducts, etc with a heat gun for nearly a half-hour, until moderate force allowed removal of panel WITH the styro-backing still in-tact. I saw excessive ice-build-up. Contrary to suggestion, I did NOT disconnect power while doing this–I wanted to see how the “secret button access” manual defroster was operating, etc. I disconnected the two wire harness connectors between the panel fan and the fridge wall, to have unobstructed access to the evaporator tubes/fins buried beneath about an 80%-ice-cake.

    [In order to pause cooling function of the fridge bay during this process, I had set the fridge to both demo mode, and manual defrost modes, interchangeably–since fridge model panels differ, I looked up how to do this on youtube. Numerous times during this process, I set the fridge into the manual defrost mode, and verified a VERY functional black wire that was around circumference of evaporator assembly–it got too hot to touch each time I turned it on…I ‘plan’ to run it manually every 90 days or so, in order to maintain this from recurring. If it does, I’ll consider manual defrost monthly. For whatever it might be worth–the manual defrost would’ve probably taken over a dozen times to thaw that ice block formation, while fridge fought itself to cool back down between cycles, if even possible by then!]

    I could’ve simply let the panel thaw, but I was in more of a rush, so I used a heat gun CAREFULLY (to not melt anything other than the ice!) to thaw out all exposed components, which took nearly another half-hour. (I took ‘breaks’ to clean the shelving, bins, and interior walls) Some of the fins had bent, which were easily correctable with needle nosed pliers. After clearing it to nearly dry, I manually (through the buttons on panel) turned the fridge back on. [by doing it this way, my freezer stayed operational for the duration, which was peace of mind for me with a busy family that often demands lengthy distractions!] I saw no glaring dysfunction, and no leaks. I then ran it on the rapid cool function until it dropped to the normal operating temp before reassembly, and everything seemed normal, and looked “new” again.

    I’ve seen many comments stating the problem recurred within about 3 weeks. I’m wondering if they did so after a full thaw-out, or just the heat applied to the exterior of the “twin cool” panel without exposing the foundational ice-up. Regardless, I’m planning to update this WHENEVER the situation may return. If it recurs before a year from now, I’d suppose something needs FIXED (not just ‘maintained’)…but if longer than a year, I’ll know to repeat the process as ‘typical Samsung maintenance’. (yes, tongue in cheek!)

    1. Please refer to the solution I mention in the bottom of my article. It has been 5yrs since I moved the temperature sensor, and I have not had a recurrence of the problem.

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