[jduncan]

The refrigerator is approx. 5-6 yrs old. The freezer setting must stay at its highest in order to keep things frozen and produce ice. The refrigerator is on regular setting and does not keep things cool as in the past. Please advise. Thanks for your help.

[woodchuck]

Check to see if the condenser fan at the back bottom of fridge is running.
Is the compressor motor near that fan running.
Are the coils warm ,cold or hot.

Is the evaporator fan in the freezer running. It blows cold air into the fridge side through a damper in the wall between the freezer and fridge. Make sure the damper is open.

Below the evaporator fan is the evaporator coils. Remove the back cover in the freezer to observe the frost pattern. stopped up? clear? ice in one spot . frost everywhere.

If the evaporator coils behind the back panel of the freezer are icing up because of auto defrost failure that will stop the circulation of cold air and eventually affect the freezer too.

check defrost timer, defrost heater, defrost thermostat

In most of the new units they now have the adaptive defrost control. It senses when to defrost based on how many times and for how long the door is opened. It's more energy efficient but there does seem to be lots of problems with the board.