Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Andy Dingley writes:
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.

If you have a power meter, measure the power consumption.
I had one which was behaving this way. Power meter showed
the compressor was pulling about 2kW instead of 120W,
although apparently working fine otherwise, between periods
of the cutout operating. Cause was probably a shorted turn

Peak power is high with even a normally operating fridge, as the
stall current of the compressor, when it's starting up, or stalled due to
being unable to start (due to high pressure (due to it being just turned
off a moment ago)) is very high.