My GE Oven Turns Off When Preheating

Preheating your GE oven allows your oven to reach the proper temperature before you insert the food that you want to bake. Because most recipes call for food to bake at a static temperature, placing food in the oven as it is preheating will likely cause the food you are baking to not come out as well as you would like. Wait for the oven to preheat, then insert the food.

Preheating Fan Confusion

When you preheat your GE oven, the convection fan inside of the appliance begins to operate. The fan is audible and noticeable. As soon as your oven reaches the temperature to which you are heating up the appliance, the fan stops. Some people confuse this for the oven turning off. The oven is still on, but the fan is not. This is normal.

Preheating Process

Set the GE Oven for the temperature at which you want the food to bake. After a moment the oven will begin to automatically preheat. You will know when the oven has finished preheating because the fan will turn off and because the oven will beep. Your GE oven should usually require 10 to 15 minutes to preheat the oven. Once the oven is preheated, you can place the food inside the oven to bake.

Preheated Food Items

Not all food needs to be preheated, but if you are making baked goods there is a very good chance that you need to preheat the oven. Some of the items that likely need to be placed into a preheated oven include mixes for cakes, cookies, pastries and breads.

Proper Broiling

When you broil food, you may sometimes notice that the food does not broil properly. This often is an indicator that the voltage may be low. To combat this problem, you may preheat the broil element in the oven for 10 minutes before cooking with it. This will help the broiler reach the proper temperature.

Bad Control Board

When the control board inside your GE oven begins to go bad, it may not completely stop working all at once. One sign that a control board is beginning to go bad is that the oven might shut down when it is preheating or cooking. You may notice a "F5" or a "FFF" code on the panel's display. You need to replace the control board to remedy this problem. You must remove the control panel cover to access, remove and replace the control panel.

Power Problem

The circuit breaker that supplies power to your oven may have tripped during the preheat process. If this was the case, open your circuit breaker box and flip the switch from "Off" to "On." You will need to reset the oven to preheat.