Skip to content 
My Fridge is humming! Help! Noises coming from a refrigerator aren’t always bad news, but you shouldn’t ignore them. That’s especially true with humming sounds, which can be easy to overlook. A gentle humming is normal for fridges, but it’s a problem if the sound is loud and continuous.
A Samsung fridge will make excessive humming noises when one of its fan motors is wearing out. The fan might still work, but the noise indicates the motor will fail soon. Besides that, there’s likely an ice buildup getting in the way of spinning fan blades. That will happen when the defrost heater, thermostat, or sensor is faulty or when the defrost drain is clogged.
The following sections in this guide will help you understand the root causes of this problem and how you can solve them.
Why Is My Samsung Fridge Making A Humming Noise?
It’s normal for all refrigerators to generate a gentle humming noise as part of their regular operation. However, excessively loud and frequent humming noises from inside are caused by two problems: an issue with the fan or an ice buildup behind the compartment’s rear panel.
Here’s a closer look at both of those possibilities:
1. Bad Fan Motor (Fridge is humming)
Your Samsung refrigerator relies on several fans to distribute air and keep itself cool. Those fans fall into two categories: evaporator and condenser fans.
Evaporator fans are located internally, and their purpose is to distribute cold air throughout the appliance’s compartments.
Meanwhile, the condenser fan is external and blows air through the hot condenser coils. Doing so helps the refrigerator get rid of heat to continue cooling the compartments from within.
Both kinds of fans consist of an electric motor that spins fan blades, and those parts work almost silently. Unfortunately, the fan motor can cause excessively loud humming noise when defective or worn out.
As long as the fans still turn, they’ll help the refrigerator function correctly. But the noise will cause discomfort, so you’ll still want to troubleshoot and fix the problem.
The Solution: Firstly, you must identify the fan humming louder than it should. Keep in mind that there could be more than one fan affected simultaneously, so be sure to listen to them carefully.
Connect with an Appliance Repair Tech
Click here to use the chatbox to speak with one of our technicians.
No in-home service calls. No appointments.
Next, the fan must be inspected to ensure the problem is the motor and not an ice buildup (which you’ll read about later). If the motor is to blame, it’s best to replace it with a new one.
Even though the fan motor might still run, the loud humming suggests it will stop working sometime soon.
Read: Why Samsung Fridge Water Dispenser Keeps Running?
2. Burned Out Defrost Heater
As you read earlier, a bad fan motor is the first explanation for your Samsung fridge humming loudly. The second explanation is a significant buildup of ice inside the unit.
That buildup will grow larger until it gets in the way of the evaporator fan blades. When that happens, the spinning fan blades will hit the ice and cause the loud humming noise you’re hearing.
Still, you must remember that the ice buildup is a symptom, not the root cause. Instead, several root causes exist, starting with a burned-out defrost heater.
The defrost heater is concealed behind the fridge compartment’s rear panel. The appliance activates the heater several times a day to melt away any frost buildup before it can turn into solid ice.
However, a burned-out defrost heater won’t generate any heat. As a result, an ice buildup will gradually form behind that same panel. As described above, it’ll continue growing until the ice reaches the evaporator fans.
The Solution: Diagnosing a burned-out defrost heater is straightforward. You only need to look at it to see if there are any burn marks. Unfortunately, the challenge is accessing the heater concealed behind the refrigerator’s rear panel.
The ice buildup might prevent you from removing the panel. If that’s the case, you must shut the fridge off and give it time to defrost naturally until the panel is removable.
Once you get the panel off, you can detach the heater and inspect it closely for burn marks. When you confirm that it’s no longer functional, you can purchase a replacement to take its place.
A failed heater might not seem like such a big deal, given that it doesn’t affect the appliance’s cooling. But if you don’t replace it quickly, the ice buildup will return, and you’ll experience more problems again.
Read: 5 Reasons Why Samsung Fridge Evaporator Fan Is Not Working
3. Faulty Defrost Sensor or Thermostat
Suppose you check the defrost heater and find nothing wrong with it. In that case, the ice buildup likely happened because the refrigerator wasn’t turning the heater on to begin with.
That can happen due to a faulty defrost sensor or thermostat. Both those components work closely to control how the defrost heater functions.
For example, when they sense that the temperature is too low near the evaporator (i.e. there’s ice building up nearby), they’ll trigger the defrost heater to turn on and melt away any minor buildups.
Then, if the defrost heater becomes too hot, the same components will shut it off to prevent overheating.
The Solution: The defrost thermostat and sensor are parts you cannot service or repair, so you must replace them if they’ve gone bad. But that replacement is the easy part.
The challenging bit is knowing whether or not either component has failed. You can do that by testing them for electrical continuity with a
Read: 3 Ways To Fix Samsung Fridge Not Cooling After Power Outage
4. Frozen Defrost Drain
Even if all defrost components are functioning correctly, an ice buildup can still form if the defrost drain is frozen. That drain is at the bottom of the compartment, collecting all water that melts due to the defrosting cycles.
Unfortunately, that drain is prone to freezing over itself. When that happens, the excess water accumulates around it and turns back into ice.
As you can imagine, that ice buildup worsens with time until one of the evaporator fans is affected. Again, that will cause the fans to create a loud humming noise as its blades hit the ice continuously.
The Solution: Firstly, you must melt the ice trapped inside the defrost drain. You can do that by gently pouring hot water around the drain to raise its temperature and clear a way for the water to flow through.
If that doesn’t help, you must shut the fridge off and open its doors. That’s a slower but more thorough way to defrost all ice buildups inside the appliance.
Then, you must clean away any dirt and debris trapped inside the drain. A small brush will be handy for that purpose.
Read: Why Samsung Fridge Is Making “JackHammer” Noise?
Final Thoughts
Remember that your refrigerator will make some humming noises throughout the day. However, you shouldn’t be able to hear those noises when you’re away from the unit. Nevertheless, excessive humming should never be ignored, as it’s a clear sign of a problem.
The first likely reason is that a fan motor is wearing out and must be replaced soon. Besides that, the problem is likely caused by an ice buildup getting in the way of spinning fan blades.
The ice builds up when the defrost system can’t work correctly due to a burned-out heater, faulty sensor or thermostat, or a frozen and clogged defrost drain.
Read: 3 Reasons Why Samsung Fridge Is Making Vibrating Noise
