has no power at all, no lights, no nothing

This has happened to me three times. The first time, the problem went away after I unplugged it for a while and fiddled with the breaker turning it on and off a few times. All of a sudden it started working again.

The second time, about a month later, after trying the above to no avail, I cleaned out the dust at the bottom, replaced the burned out drum light and fiddled with a few other things. Nothing. Then I lifted the head (slide a putty knife under the ends from the front). The whole thing flips back on plastic hinges at the top. I disconnected and reconnected the ribbon. That worked! I am genius, I think.

Today, a month or two later, same thing happens. So, I try ribbon deal again, and again several time, disconnect and reconnect a few other things, testing after each step. Nothing. Stop to search the net for a while for some other solution. Finding nothing, go back and try disconnecting and reconnecting the ribbon again. And, this time it worked. I'm back in business. Who knows for how long. The ribbon connections are marked P4 and P3.

After writing the above, I went back to check the dryer which was drying my clothes as I wrote. The clothes are dry but the head is now dead again. Nothing happens when I push any button. Shoot! Must be something to do with the ribbon and its connections. Can't see paying $250 for new control board. Might as well just get a new dryer.

Here's the answer for me (I inherited a set of the he4's). I removed the plug (didn't want to get zapped) then removed the top, exposing the board that the electronic ribbons are plugged into. I removed and reseated these ribbons (if I recall correctly there were only two). Plugged back in to test. Pushed buttons to see if display would light up...and voila!

I realize that the problem could be completely different from what my machine was experiencing... but for mine it was a connection issue with how the ribbons are seated. There's a way to improve the contact on those connections with a contact cleaner spray/lubricant. I haven't messed with any yet, but will do the next go around when it needs another fix.

There is a design issue with the Kenmore HE4 dryer, and this is likely similar to the HE3 line. The HE4 (correct me if the HE3 is different..) has it's air exhaust below the front door. What happens is, clothes will tend to block this vent as they slump around. Moisture will build up in the cabinet , which isnt a big issue in itself, as you did put wet clothes in... but enough of this moisture makes its way thru the cabinet onto the two control boards., causing issues. On mine, it would intermittently refuse to start (no lights , no response to buttons). This turned out to be one of the front panel microswitches.. it had corrosion around the pin connectors. The chipset does a self-check before startup and it found the switch apparently in the fully pressed mode (the corrosion). Replacing the small switch ($2) solved the issue.

The design fault can be worked around. All you have to do is make sure the clothes dont block the vent too much. One way to do this is do only dry very small loads. The better way, IMHO, is to elevate the front of the machine a little (1" etc). You can do this with the adjustable feet, or a simple bit of wood block etc. Now, the clothes will tend to 'walk' towards the rear of the drum , allowing proper airflow.

I found our HE4 dryer at the local dump (small rural community).. I presume the previous owner refused to pay the $400 cost of new circuit boards and instead tossed it. Appliance repair guys just swap boards nowadays.. no one wants to replace cheap electronic switches etc.

As a bonus.. we discovered another HE4 a coupla years later, also at the dump (no, these were not in the 'pit' with the regular garbage.. ick.. theres a separate place for scrap metal etc), so now I have a box of spare parts for mine !

If you have an HE3/4 and dont suspect you will have an issue.. check out your dryer vent while it's running a full load. If the vent flow is very erratic , you will have a circuit board problem eventually !

No power from control board. Found corrosion on control board and cleaned up with alcohol and q tip and now works great.

Turned out my out side dryer vent was not closing all the way when we would run the fans in the bathrooms of the house this would draw moisture into the dryer causing the board to become wet Have fixed the outside vent and is running fine

A few days ago my dryer was running perfect. Yesterday when I went to use it, nothing. No noise, lights, nothing. I tried the “hard reset” by unplugging for a minute then plugging in then opening and shutting the door 6 times yadda yadda yadda….didn’t do anything. I placed it into diagnostic mode by pressing the button sequence more time, less time, more time, less time, more time, less time in less than 5 seconds. In diagnostic mode the whole panel lit up and I could get the dryer barrel to run by pressing start with the door closed, but it ran nonstop and without heat. Plus the timer chime would not stop going off. Needless to say diagnostic mode did nothing for me other than confirm power was reaching the panel. After a thorough cleaning and checking connections, ribbons/wires, heating fuse, and thermister with my meter, I removed the main board and control panel. There are two green boards in the control housing. I disconnected the ribbons, and carefully removed the boards in the control panel housing. I used a clean dry firm toothbrush to loosen lint and corrosion from the ribbon seats and blew them out really well with canned air. Finally I reassembled everything and she works as if nothing was ever the matter. CAUTION!!! Be sure that the power is disconnected from the outlet prior to diddling around in the board compartments. Unless you like ouch, then get you some ouch by playing in a live circuit.

I had these similar symptoms. Initially the dryer always displayed 41 and the cancel button didn't work. I could never turn it fully off. Then after a week of pondering that the unit just wouldn't turn on at all. The opposite problem.

In our case we figured out that the Touch Up button was permanently depressed. Looking at it from the backside, that column was a little bit askew; (when functioning) it was still able to activate the button, but if it was pressed too far it would slide off to the side, making it even more angled and then the friction of it being more askew than it wanted to be kept it in place. It didn't take much pressure at all to free it, but it's hard if not impossible to apply that pressure when everything was assembled.

Kenmore Elite Dryer HE4 Model 110.8586, 8587

We've had our Kenmore Elite HE4 washer and dryer for 18 years without a problem until recently. The dryer would not turn on and it showed no indication of receiving power. I disconnected it from the power and then opened it up. I removed the screws from the back which were holding the top and slid the top back to show the circuit card.

There is one big connector where the red and black AC power pins plug into the circuit card. I removed the connector and checked the pins. I saw no obvious issues such as burn marks, broken wires or components. I plugged the connector back into the circuit card and put the machine back together.

I plugged it in, and it started and ran all weekend. The next few weekends I went through the same routine where the machine doesn't work, and I opened it up to check the the circuit card and and power connector. Nothing looked amiss so I put it back together and the machine worked for that weekend.

I finally realized that the connector on the circuit card had corrosion on the two female sockets. Every time I pulled the two male pins out and reconnected them I was scraping a littler bit of corrosion from the female connector. That connection might last a weekend if I was lucky.

The fix was to remove the male pins and clean out the female sockets with a drill bit. After doing this, I put the machine back together and it has been running problem free ever since.

Remove and splice or replace the connector. Resistance in a connection will make it get hot and deteriorate the plastic connector and wire insulation creating an electrical hazard. All electrical connections must be gas tight using proper connecting hardware.