In today’s failing economy, my high-powered two figure income as a blogger just isn’t enough, so I fix various electronics on the side. I have a lot of experience with the Xbox 360, and I can say with confidence that something stinks about the official MS response to Joystiq’s poll on the topic.

Microsoft responded to Joystiq’s inquiries with the following statement:

E74 is a general hardware error on Xbox 360 indicated by a single red flashing light in the Xbox Ring of Light and an error message visible on the television. This error is unrelated to the three flashing red lights error and there is not a single root cause. We encourage anyone who receives this error to contact Xbox Customer support through www.xbox.com/support or 1-800-4-MY-XBOX. The majority of customers who own Xbox 360 consoles continue to have a terrific experience from their first day, and continue to, day in and day out.

Doesn’t really say much, does it? Let me see if I can shed some light on this situation. The E74 error indicates a flaw along the graphics pipeline. It could be a bad A/V cable, it could be a bad scaling chip, it could be a bad GPU, or it could even be a bad solder joint under the GPU. To be clear, no, there is no “single root cause”, however, you can be guaranteed that the problem is related to graphics processing in some way. The part of that statement I really have a problem with is the implication that the E74 error has nothing to do with the red ring of death (three flashing red lights) error. It’s been my experience that the RRoD can also be caused by GPU errors, such as overheating, and bad solder joints under the GPU. In fact, the method I use to fix the RRoD, and the method that most commonly works for fixing the E74 error are identical. Furthermore, many of my customers (as well as a lot of forum posters around the internet) report seeing the E74 error shortly before getting the RRoD. To be clear, GPU problems aren’t the ONLY  cause of the RRoD. The RRoD can also be caused by CPU issues, and overheating RAM.

So why all the fuss? Well, the RRoD is covered under a new, extended three year warranty, which is a move I have to commend Microsoft for. The E74 error, however, isn’t covered under that three year warranty. One theory floated in the Joystiq article is that RRoD’s are being reported as E74 errors by the console after the NXE update. Joystiq was quick to dismiss this due to the occurrence of RRoD’s in a post NXE world, but I’m not so sure. See, as I mentioned above, there are a variety of reasons that a 360 can get the RRoD. One of those reasons is problems with the GPU. There are also a variety of reasons that a 360 can get the E74 error, one of which is also problems with the GPU. Given the fact that both errors could be caused by a GPU malfunction of some sort, it seems entirely possible that all GPU errors are now being reported as E74 errors by the console’s diagnostic software. This would effectively decrease the number of RRoD’s, and increase the number of E74 errors experienced by users after installing the NXE.  Unfortunately, while Joystiq’s numbers indicate an increase in E74 errors, they make no mention of a decrease in RRoD errors. I, for one, would love to get to the bottom of this issue, so I’m going to wrap this post up with a survey:

Your 360 broke, and you...

• Got an E74 error before the NXE launched
• Got an E74 error after the NXE launched
• Got an RRoD (3 flashing red lights) before the NXE launched
• Got an RRoD (3 flashing red lights) after the NXE launched
• Got an E74, followed almost immediately by an RRoD before the NXE launched
• Got an E74, followed almost immediately by an RRoD after the NXE launched
• I feel the compulsive need to answer survey questions even if they don't relate to me in any way.

View Results

-Mike Kurz

Tags: E74, featured, Microsoft, RROD, Xbox 360

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