On 17 Dec 2004 06:41:12 -0800, "Al, Cambridge, UK"
wrote:

The motor runs, the heat exchanger on the back gets almost too hot to
touch and the unradiator thing inside gets icy cold.

Lost pressure. It still "works", but is now so inefficient (hence the
extra heat) that the motor is flogging its little guts out trying to
keep up. It's probably cycling on just the motor overheat limit.

The economics of fridges are such that running an inefficient one is a
bad idea, compared to repair or even replacement.