GE Café induction cooktop completely dead, oven still working — Spring Valley, NY

The call

The cooktop had stopped completely. Not one weak zone, not one that cut out under load — nothing on the glass responded at all, while the oven underneath went on baking as if nothing had happened.

What we found

Induction does not heat the glass. Under each zone sits a coil, and a generator board converts household power into the high-frequency current those coils run on; the pan itself is what gets hot. So when every zone dies at the same moment and the oven is untouched, the coils are rarely the answer. Something they all share is.

We connected the GE service diagnostic tool — the manufacturer's own instrument, which talks to the range's boards and reads back what they report rather than leaving us to infer it from the outside. On a machine at this price that is the difference between knowing and guessing. The induction generator was not answering.

Lifting the cooktop confirmed it. Four coils in place, wiring intact, no scorching anywhere, and the generator board sitting in its tray between them — a half-bridge unit that drives the zones in pairs. It had failed outright, and with it went the entire cooking surface at once.

The fix

Fitted a new generator board, GE part 301D1780G005, and put the harness back the way the factory routes it. Induction wiring runs close to the coils and the heat shielding is there for a reason; a board swap done quickly and a board swap done properly look identical on the day and different a year later.

Then we tested it the only way that counts — a pan on the glass, every zone in turn, low through Power Boil, watching each one hold and shut off cleanly. All four came back.

Worth saying for anyone with an induction range: a cooktop that dies all at once while the oven still works is not the disaster it looks like. It usually points at one shared part, and that is a far better outcome than zones failing one by one.