One additional item, I did check and there were no fault codes.

Bad board, yes. The procedure you followed by unplugging/replugging the power to check diverter operation is a correct diagnosis for that problem.

May be reasonable to change the diverter as well in case some flakiness on it caused the board problem.

Your "How to Repair" link is for an older Aus/NZ model which may not be exactly relevant to your newer U.S. unit.

Thanks for the confirmation of the bad board. Any idea on if it was the cleaning cycle that did it or just coincidental?

I did see that it was a different model, but I couldn't find any better information online. (Anyone have a suggestion?) I know there are no "serviceable parts" on the board, but figured I would at least open it up and take a look for any obvious problems (bad capacitors, blown resistors etc) before having the cost of a new board.

The clamp connecting diverter valve to the recirculation tube was a bit rusty (item #7 circled in blue below) . More rusty was the clamp for the small tube the goes back into the control panel (item 15 circled in red below). Is this typical or something I should be concerned about?

Coincidental .... unlikely the cleaning cycle had any relation to the failed board. The cleaning cycle on GWL11 works off the Perm Press cycle. Perm Press doesn't activate the diverter, it skips the Eco Active wash phase.

Neither clamp should be exposed to water under normal use. Any evidence of leaking from the diverter? That would account for #7 being rusty. #15 clamp is for the water level pressure tube where it attaches to the tub air dome, shouldn't be any water in that area ... unless perhaps there's a drip coming down the drain hose, or from the tub cover. You can substitute appropriate-size spring- or screw-clamps. Don't overtighten them.

You mentioned water on the floor. Coming from the recirculation stream splashing ... or somewhere as yet unidentified?

Thanks for the response!

I didn't see any evidence of leaking from the diverter, but just tilted the washer back slightly to work on it so I didn't have a great view. I figured there shouldnâÂÂt be any water in that area, but I am not sure where it would be coming from. I till take a look at the area around the diverter, the drain hose and around the cover to see if I can determine anything.

I am not positive where the water on the floor came from, but I think it may have been from when the pump was recirculating instead of draining at at beginning of the rinse cycle. My theory is that the recirculating water hit the rotating inner drum and splashed outside the outer drum. Water seemed to be more towards the back which would make sense if the spin cycle was counter clockwise (not sure which direction the spin is)

Again thanks so much for your help!

Spin is clockwise.

The machine physically can't spin (not more than ~25 RPM) until the water is drained. The basket floats upward about 1/4" to disengage from the drive cog when the machine fills for agitation. The water must drain almost completely for the basket to drop down and re-engage the cog.

Spray-over can occur if the diverter is partially clogged ... such that the machine can drain but there's also a little recirculation. The water does drain but slowly. Some recirculation occurs, hits the rim and splatters around when the basket kicks up to a higher spin RPM and water extraction commences from the clothes.

hmmm. Then I really am not sure why there why there was water on the floor. The diverter was not partially clogged so I it shouldn't have been any over-spray.

When we ran the cleaning cycle we set the water level to "high" rather then auto. Could that have been part of the problem?

I thought I read somewhere on this forum the Perm Press cycle does not use the diverter valve. If I put everything back together and then leave the diverter valve disconnected could we wash on perm press until we get a new board?

The programmed cleaning cycle defaults to high water level by design.

Regards to washing on Perm Press with the diverter disconnected -- should be doable if the machine doesn't throw a fault code for detecting that the diverter is missing from its circuit. The F&P electrical design is somewhat sensitive to the expected resistance loads from the various components. For example, a fault code will trigger immediately upon connecting to power if either of the water valves is disconnected. The diverter may not be referenced that way, I haven't tried it.

Well I put everything back together but didn't electrically connect the diverter valve and have now run three loads on Perm Press without issue so it looks like perm press works without the diverter valve being connected.

Any idea if this kind problem with the controller board can be fixed or is only solution a new board?

New thought on the water on the floor. When the basket is floating up it closes the gap the recirculating "shower" flows through. When we found the washer initially it was recirculating water, but not very well as the gap was very small. When the tub is full of water the water may not have been able to get through at all and could splash out of the outer tub and onto the floor. It probably spilled enough water on the floor until the tub was low enough that it was able to recirculate continuously which is how we found it. Not willing to try it again and have water on the floor again to find out!

Just want to add a note to this excellent thread (which helped me get my washer going again!).

My GWL15 had the same problem: endless recirculation, no drainage at all. When cool, diverter valve switched to open drain side, then quickly switched to recirc when wax warmed.

BUT the diagnostic code I got was #37--pump blockage. Didn't seem right, as the pump worked to recirc and in diagnostic mode>Regular. Pulled the pump anyway & cleaned out some minor lint gunk, but no change.

In the end I bypassed the diverter valve as northbear did, and it's working fine on Perm Press. That's enough of a solution for me, as 98% of my loads are standard size w cold water, not different enough from Regular to matter.

In spite of some bad opinions on some of the forums, my GWL15 has performed well for 8 years. If/when there's another problem I'll decide then whether to fix or just replace the washer.

Main point of my post is: Don't accept the diagnostic code as gospel. Use your head and try stuff. I'm a 67-y.o. woman, and if I can stumble through some troubleshooting, anybody can. Thanks, northbear and dadoes, for sharing your experience.

The trick about Fault 37 (Pump Blocked) is that the machine does not directly monitor pump operation for blockage. It infers that there's a problem with the pump by way of noting that the water level is not dropping when it should be dropping during drain. So anything that prevents draining will trigger Fault 37 even if the pump itself is OK. The cause in the majority of incidents is a problem of some ilk related to the diverter.

Makes sense. Thanks.

Do you happen to know if any other of the wash cycles--Wool, Delicates--are usable with the diverter valve disconnected?

Perm Press is the only cycle that doesn't use the diverter. All other cycles start with an Eco Active wash phase which requires the diverter be active for recirculation.

Thought I would give a quick update 9 months later!

Still running the machine with the diverter valve disconnected with no issues. I have thought about replacing the board several times, but they are harder to find (can be found mostly on e-bay). Not sure about buying used and new can be quite expensive.

I guess I kept waiting for something else to break or to have another problem before working on it again and but it keeps running just fine in its limited capacity. We setup the favorites cycle to use perm press so we could adjust more of the settings (ie use fast spin speed)

Not sure what the disadvantage of running the machine this way semi-permanently is (uses more water?) But at this point I think we will just continue to wait and see what happens.

NorthBear and VioletCrumble,

Try this workaround for using other cycles -- Let the machine fill to the selected (or auto-sensed) water level on Perm Press. Then either pause it or kill the power and restart on whatever other cycle is desired (manually select the water level to match the filled level). The Eco Active recirculation phase will be skipped since the machine is already filled.

The diverter is used only during Eco Active, except for a few seconds during the agitated (softener) rinse fill to flush the recirculation hose. There's a slight chance an error may occur when the machine tries to energize the diverter during the rinse fill. If that happens then the workaround won't work. I haven't tried it, am conjecturing based on how the diverter is used and the cycle functions proceed. This shouldn't be an issue on Heavy or Regular if the Softener Rinse option is not used.

Additional for VioletCrumble -- a drawback to using Perm Press is that Warm is the highest temp allowed, unless Perm Press is programmed onto the Favorites button as NorthBear has done.

Thanks to both of you. I programmed a favorite cycle yesterday but will try some changes today.

I'm less concerned about hot water than I am about a spin duration of just 2 minutes. One of the amazing features of this washer is how the thorough spin reduces dry times.

I'm with northbear on the fix/don't fix question. I'll be happy if the washer keeps going and will weigh what's worth doing next time.

Dadoes, do you agree with the "expert" in the post referenced by northbear that the GWL15 was a weak/vulnerable machine deign in the first place?

You can spin on Regular after a Perm Press run is finished. Select Regular, press the Advance button to the final Spin light, then Start.

All washer designs have engineering weaknesses. Six of one, half-dozen of another. Whirlpool had some models that used a diverter for recirculation and drain, of a traditional solenoid design rather than a wax motor. Those also fail, I replaced one on a friend's machine last year.

Well I guess I have waited long enough for something else to break ;-)

Starting today, when the machine is first turned on the it will "growl' at you - which I believe is the pump trying to pump out water that isn't there. Even more exciting is if you turn off the machine it will continue despite there being no led's lit on the display. I even unplugged the machine (it did stop then! - so we can rule out that it is possessed by evil spirits) , waited a bit and then plugged back in and the pump turned back on again. I was able to get the pump to stop by briefly starting a cycle then pausing and then turning the machine off. Or maybe it just decided to turn off on it's own, who knows!

No error codes are being displayed.

I am thinking it is the control board getting worse causing this issue.

Any opinions on what is wrong - or simply confirming that it looks like the control board is the problem - would be great!

The board apparently has deteriorated further ... either sending power to the pump when it shouldn't ... or erroneously sensing an overfill/flood condition which will trigger the pump to run even if the machine is otherwise off.

Sorry to hear of continued woes, northbear. My question to dadoes is:

Given that the pump, also, is or will be shot from running without water, is the wisdom to replace both parts now or just junk the machine?

If the latter, are these F&P Eco machines worthy of our hard-earned dollars?

Thanks.

Washing machines and dishwashers, it's not possible for the pump to drain 100% of the water. There is some residual water that always remains in the tub sump area ... the pump never runs dry unless the machine sits unused for a VERY long time such that the residual evaporates, or a newly-installed machine or replacement pump is run directly without some fill first. Either way, it's not likely to be a problem.

Dadoes,

Thanks for the responses. Glad to hear the pump is most likely just fine.

Thank you Dadoes for a very thorough explanation of how these things work. Our problem with our Fisher Paykel EcoSmart is that the water coming from the recirculating hose splashes against the side of the tub or the tub ring during the initial filling cycle, spraying furiously and causing water to leak all over. Luckily we noticed it long before it got to the spin cycle, and we are not anxious to try it. The hose is seated in place and does not appear to have any leaks, and the tub ring is properly seated as well. Ran it on Perm Press, and no problem, as you said (brilliant!). But what are we missing? This did start to happen when we started a wash with hot water (unusual for us).

John Ronan,

Are you referring to the recirculation hose/port? Or the fill nozzle mounted at the center beneath the top deck?

The recirculation hose is mostly aimed at the gap between the rim of the basket and the tub cover ... some of the spray does hit the rim of the basket but should be directed through the gap to shower into the basket.

There are cases of some of the spray holes in the fill nozzle getting obstructed with mineral deposits from hard water and spewing askew.

Dadoes,

Thanks much for the response. We are for sure referring to the recirculation hose/port. The water begins the cycle coming out of the fill nozzle. The, once it switches to the recirc hose/port, it comes out so strong that it seems to splash and almost ricochet outside the outer tub. Should it be coming out so strong? Also, for what it's worth, we first experienced the problem in a hot water mode, which we almost never do.

I'll attach some pictures: 1 with ring cover thing on and then, after removing it, so you can see how the hose looks. It doesn't appear to have any cracks or anything. My finger in the pictures is showing the direction that we can see the water squirting out in.

Thanks for any insight.-john

Recirculation flow is at pump pressure / flow rate. It is what it is, no way to control it.

Hot water shouldn't have any effect. I wash in hot water often. My Intuitive Eco and AquaSmart both recirculate as they should whether hot water, warm, or cold.

It's difficult to understand what you have happening with the recirculation problem without seeing it. Any way you can do a video, posted to YouTube or shared via Google Photos or some such?

Also, it's not clear how far you may be raising the top deck while accessing/viewing the tub area. Be aware that the wiring harness that runs from the control board down to the motor, diverter, & pump is routed behind the tub support hanger at the right/rear corner. There's a large wrap of electrical tape around it at that point for protection but raising the top repeatedly & high rubs that area against the sharp edge of the outer cabinet and can potentially cause cut wire(s), particularly if the tape wrap is worn and/or loosened & slipped down from where is should be. Shouldn't raise the top higher than necessary.

Thanks for the warning about the top deck. I'll try'n get some video on it to show.

Good idea!

dadoes, this link will show you what we are seeing. unfortunately, it doesn't quite show the problem as it decided not to do it when we recorded.

There are more notes in the video.

Thanks for any ideas.

https://youtu.be/rxOZEMe11Vc

The excess spray ... does it come from the backside of the tub cover?

I had some leaking from the recirculation on my AquaSmart, which has a slightly different design than Eco Smart. Not back-spray but dripping down the outside of the outer tub from under the tub cover.

Eco Smart doesn't recirculate unless the tub is *not* floated (older models, recent revisions do ... you didn't cite your model but the pump sounds like the older style).

AquaSmart does recirculate when the tub is floated (sometimes multiple times during a cycle), which reduces the gap for the spray to pass. That's when mine would leak, especially with a large load in deep-fill mode because the additional weight of the water would drop the tub down lower, and the anti-oscillation straps attached from the suspension corners to the tub cover would correspondingly pull *upwards* on the tub cover with more force. The fix I did was place a small strip of foam insulation tape (thin 1/4") atop the recirculation hose for a better seal against the tub cover. I tried first placing a strip along the *edge* of the tub starting several inches back from the recirculation hose to several inches past it but that didn't fully solve the problem. Reworked it with just a short piece directly atop the hose, hasn't leaked since.

Dadoes,

This was a great idea! I sealed around where the recirc hose comes out with some foam tape and all is well.

Thanks!!!!!