My wife and I recently moved into a house with a Goodman HVAC unit (I know their reputation) which was installed in 2018. Earlier today, I noticed the compressor outside making a strange cycling sound, almost as if a motor is attempting to start up and then cutting off almost immediately. This cycling is happening anywhere from 10-15 seconds apart to up to a minute or so. Does anyone have any guesses of what this noise is and if it should be cause for concern? It can be heard at 0:23 and 1:06 in this video:

For reference, the unit appears to be cooling properly, but seems to be running fairly constantly, for 10-15 minutes at a time with a less than 5 minute break in-between. Thermostat has been set on 73 almost all day, and there is R-38 insulation at the attic, so decently efficient at the roof.

Had same issue with a Goodman. The compressor is trying to start but doesn't have enough juice to get it going. My AC tried a new capacitor boost thing to give a bit more to get it going but I ended up replacing it when that didn't work.

CapCity12thMan said:

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Had same issue with a Goodman. The compressor is trying to start but doesn't have enough juice to get it going. My AC tried a new capacitor boost thing to give a bit more to get it going but I ended up replacing it when that didn't work.

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Thanks for the info! By replacement, do you mean the capacitor or the entire unit?

Plan was to replace the capacitor with that booster thing I described. But it didn't work.

Long story short I paid $2500 to have that Goodman compressor installed 8 yrs ago because I didn't want to replace air handler too at that time. When the Goodman started doing what yours is I was ready to replace it all since the handler was super old and wearing out..

One thing you can try is turning the unit off and letting it cool. I did this over night a couple of nights and it always kicked back on in the morning…so I was thinking it was an overheat temp thing. Just one morning it never came
Back on.

Not sure this is helpful for you but literally same exact thing happened as yours. That electrical hum noise is a retry to kick the compressor
Back on at some interval:

Need new capacitor. That's a $30 DIY job. Unscrew that top righthand corner panel and take a pic of the capacitor cell. Get a new capacitor at Ace hardware and swap it out. It's easy to do.

yes a capacitor is the issue. For me, that didn't fix it for some reason unfortunately. Hopefully you get a different result.

got to 6:45 in this vid...you will hear same thing yours is doing...dude replaces a capacitor:

Thanks for the info! We have a home warranty so I'm going to let them deal with the initial capacitor replacement since the unit is still cooling somewhat for now. That way, they're on the hook if it ends up being something more significant. Worst case scenario, if I later determine that a system replacement is necessary (which I highly doubt at six years old), then I would likely negotiate for a buyout anyway with the home warranty and find my own HVAC guy.