The paper addresses the factors that can improve the performance of an activated carbon/methanol intermittent solar adsorption ice marker. It optimizes the ice maker under Dhahran climate with the MATLAB program to improve the performance and to increase the ice production per day per square meter of the solar collector. The optimizing results show that 14.1 kg of activated carbon NORIT RX3-Extra per m(2) of solar collector, double glazing cover, thin stainless steel absorber tubes with selective coating, suitable monthly collector tilt angle and suitable time for starting the cycle improve the performance. Moreover, the system can produce from 5 kg up to 13 kg of ice per day per m(2) of collector area with improved solar coefficients of performance (SCOP) of 0.12 and 0.24 in the hot and the cold days, respectively. The optimized solar refrigerator is of benefit to further application and producing ice in grid-off rural zones. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.