Xbox 360 owners, tell us if you have suffered from E74
A sign your Xbox may have a bad case of E74.
Maybe you’ve heard the term “E74,” or worse, you’ve experienced it.
It’s not a plot point in the board game “Battleship”; instead, it’s a code for the latest hardware headache suffered by Xbox 360 owners.
Since last summer, reports of this error code have risen steadily, according to Google Trends’ tracking of the problem. The source isn’t clear, but Microsoft’s product support website says the E74 code, appearing after the video screen goes blue and at the same time as one red light flashes next to the console’s power button, refers to a “hardware failure” of some sort.
It doesn’t seem to matter how old the console is, either; new, old and reconditioned boxes are afflicted equally.
The best guess to date as to the cause is that E74 relates to a fault in Xbox 360’s graphics processor, and that Microsoft’s update of the system’s dashboard interface to the New Xbox Experience in November aggravated what until now was merely a latent issue.
Microsoft hasn’t said yet what it thinks specifically is causing the spate of E74s. To solve the problem though, Microsoft suggests on its website that people turn off the console, unplug and then replug all the cables, then turn the system back on. Another suggestion is to take the same approach with all the Xbox 360’s accessories.
If neither of those approaches works, Microsoft urges notifying customer support.
Unfortunately, the boxes just coming out of warranty may not be covered for repair costs as they were for the “red ring of death.”
So, tell us, if you’re a St. Louis-area gamer, have you suffered from E74? Were you able to fix it? Did Microsoft fix it? If so, was the repair cost covered? Or, did you just toss in the towel and buy a new console?
UPDATE: Joystiq says it has been polling Xbox owners on the problem for a few days. Check out the response.
I’m an Austin, TX gamer who’s just had the E74 this week. I’m outside the warranty period and weighing my options. $100 seems pretty steep a price for repairing a hardware error that may have been caused by their own software updates.
I’ve got too many games and accessories to just chunk it and call it a day, and buying a PS3 would be even more pricey, but there’s no assurance that this will work.
In addition, this is my third xbox 360 console- I shouldn’t need 4 systems to make it through a hardware generation.
I’m holding out hope that more people will be hit by this bug, and that Microsoft will be shamed into extending the warranty for those affected. Until then, I’m a consumer not buying Xbox games, accessories, or Live marketplace content because my console apparently isn’t compatible with them.
this does make me regret buying Xbox… it would be ideal to buy PS3, but the plan was to spend the money on games
I got the e74 5 days after the 1yr warranty expired. Microsoft said that they would charge me $100 to fix it. Thankfully I bought the extended warranty through the retailer and had it replaced with a new one. But I did go ahead and buy another warranty for the new one. So I’m out something like 80 bucks for a 3yr warranty. I’ll never buy another microsoft console.
I live in Chambersburg, PA
Yesterday, which was the first day of my Easter vacation and I really looked forward to FINALLY playing some god damn halo. I start to play a round and in the first round I start to get what I can only describe as matrix lines.
I jiggled the cord and restarted with a brilliant lil E74 message. After about 40 minutes with a women who took 10 minutes to get my gamertag right which is Dante Divinity. I have an A in speech class I speak incredibly clear. I had to spell it out and after a while she finally got it pulled up. It said that my one year warranty went up December 20th 08 when I bought my Xbox in July 08 if anyone can do math there are some problems with that. So I have to get a hold of my sister that is halfway across the country that bought the Xbox for me because I took care of her two daughters for 8 months while she was getting a divorce I lived with her to help out. I am 16 btw. She bought the Xbox through her work so she will have to search through her credit card statement or something. This should already be covered by the RROD problem. This is ridiculous. I loved Xbox before this. This will defiantly make me reconsider my decision for the generation of systems after this one.