My whirlpool dishwasher is flashing 8 times - I pressed and held the start button to reset and then pressed start again, it kicked in and started to fill with water and stopped again - any ideas.

Hi
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Ok try this and see what happens.
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Hold the start button again till it beeps
Then select the first cycle on the left which should be the rinse cycle
Then turn the dishwasher off
Then press and hold the start button and with this held in turn the dishwasher on.
Once the start light is flashing let go
Now press the start button once and close the door.
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Now it will run a 12 minute test cycle. If it goes wrong it will drain the water out and beep. So open the door and count the number of flashes from the start light inbetween the pause and let me know.
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Regards

There is a trouble shooting document behind the kick panel at the bottom of the machine. Follow the steps to determine which component is at fault. It may be corrosion in the low voltage connector.
My whirlpool dishwasher gold GU2475XTVQ0 had rapid blinking lights that started with the "4 Hour Delay" LED and changed to others when other buttons were pressed. The machine would not run. I followed the instructions located behind the kick panel and verified the keypad was the issue and not the control circuit by elimination.
The big surprise for me was that when I used a straight pin to resistance check all of the buttons, they checked out OK. I reconnected the 14 pin connector (P1) to the control and found that the buttons/LEDs were behaving correctly! I believe that pushing the straight pin into the 14 pin connector removed any corrosion in the 10 year old device and permitted the keypad to communicate with the control again.
I reassembled the dishwasher door and it ran with no problems. I was ready to replace the keypad for $150, but didn't have to!

Check, if you have water in the machine, if yes, your control board could at fault

Not positive, have you tried turning the circuit breaker off for a minute or two then back on? See if it will reset itself? Just trying to help.

http://www.whirlpool.co.uk/discover-whirlpool/press-room/press-releases/2009/latest-dishwasher-design.content.html

Hope this helps

Positive Feedback ALWAYS welcome :)

does it flash say 8 times then a little break then flash again 8 times or 9 or 10 . The flashes are giving the type of fault you have. Say 3 flashes then a tiny break then 3 flashes and a tiny break so on...

You will have to reset the console. To do this, close the door and press these buttons in sequence...

-high temp wash
-heated dry
-high temp wash
-heated dry

...all the lights will turn on briefly and the machine will start a diagnostic cycle. You can press cancel or let the diagnostic cyle finish (1-2 minutes).
You should now be able to run the dishwasher as normal.

Again Pressed the main button for about 15 sec that did reset the fault

larf

press and hold the start button until it resets about 5 sec then try again.

holding the button for four seconds will not do it, you have to hold it until the light stops blinking and
will go back to normal, normall takes more than four seconds to unlock the unit, this is something
the sears repair techs know becouse the are trained on all this things but, they will not share this things, becouse thats how they make money