GE microwave "power went off during cooking" help

[Jennifer2]

Hello all,

I have a GE PVM9179SK1SS microwave that just started giving the error message "power went off during cooking - press any button to continue".  Pressing any button resets the unit.   Some times I will get the error in 1 minute and other times it takes 3-4 minutes.

After it shuts off the cooking cycle, the time of day display and buttons work fine.  The cooling fan and magnetron both sound normal and appear to working normal as it is heating up the food.  All of the connections look ok (no indications of burning).  Could the thermal cut off be weak? 

Any and all ideas are welcome.  I am reluctant to just start throwing parts at it. 

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Jennifer2]

Can anyone help point me in the right direction?  Failing magnetron, TCO, anything?

[Nathaniel Peterson]

On 7/9/2023 at 5:49 PM, Jennifer2 said:

Can anyone help point me in the right direction?  Failing magnetron, TCO, anything?

Usually if it one of the tco's which could cause this you'll see a melted wire that melts away from the connection then cools off and makes connection again. Could be relay for the magnetron, and could be the board or noise filter going bad. Make sure you watch a video on how to discharge the capacitor. I don't know about the other techs here but due to the high voltage (2000 volts) that can be left in the high voltage side we don't really like to walk people through microwave troubleshooting. One of our experienced tech wasn't paying attention to closely and accidentally touched something on the high voltage side and had to kick the whole cart in order to get it away from him. We would much rather you call a technician on a microwave to be honest. If you do this please be careful. The user interface board can also cause this issue and possibly others. The order I listed is usually the order in how frequently I find these to be the cause. Just make sure if it's a TCO to make sure the magnetron relay isn't stuck closed which will mean you need a board also.