Whirlpool WRB322DMBM00 Fridge Manually Defrosted - Next Step?

[bmannino]

I was getting a ton of frost on the back wall of my freezer, and even noticed some ice on the top vent in the fridge, even though the temp was just mildly cool.  I bought the fridge new in May of 2018.

I was able to trigger forced defrost mode and noticed some melting at the very bottom of the air holes along the middle of the back wall in the freezer.  I could also see water finally starting to accumulate in the drip pan when I removed the bottom back panel.  

All fans have been running all along, but I decided to just shut the whole thing down to melt every last bit of ice.  Left it off overnight, cleaned everything up and turned it back on about 3 hours ago.  Fridge is nice and cool, and the freezer is already super cold.  In fact, some of the water left over after my cleaning already froze.  The back wall looks OK at the moment and all systems go.

I assume the problem may return, but I'm wondering what your suggestions are as to the best way to troubleshoot the issue from this point forward?

From what I've read, it's often the control board when only the forced defrost works.  Before buying a replacement board, I was curious if there could be something else going on, and if so, how might I go about testing it?

Thanks in advance,

-Ben M.

[16345Ed]

Definitely board if fans running during defrost and forced defrost worked.