Google Trends Indicate E74′s Beginnings
Ever since my first 360 gave me the middle finger, or more accurately; Error 74, I’ve been keeping an eye on the bug. It’s not covered by Xbox’s warranty and after more faffing around than I could be bothered with, resulted in me buying another 360 (shakes invisible fist at Microsoft).
Over the past few months, rumblings around the net have been becoming increasingly more frequent regarding the delightful E74, with Joystiq’s poll catching my eye this morning. Is this actually something that’s recent, or is it only now that people are catching wind of the problem?
Looking to extend my mighty hands of journalism, I went to Google Trends. A place to find out the popularity of search terms, and the results are rather interesting. Prior to July of last year (coincidentally the month my 360 gave me E74), people searched infrequently enough for “e74″ for it not to show up. But in the past 7 months that figure has risen to now reach equal footing with the search term “rrod”.
Many sources report the bug comes from the graphics chip and that it seems to be happening uniformly regardless of software updates. Perhaps indicating this is simply some shoddy internal components wearing out? Hopefully we will find out the cause soon enough, and then 3 years later Microsoft will claim to have fixed it.
Ahhh this is the case of what my machine is doing, giving me the E 74 message. I have one of the newer machines(HDMI output and just over a year old, purchased in jan 08). Although i am hoping for a red ring of death, and using towels on a regular basis(acutually revives it from the E 74, but the unit turns off before it will melt to a red ring). Here is hoping the admit to this being a shoddy manufacturing issue, and make a 3 year warranty extension for this.
@OrgunDonor: I spent hours trying to get it to red ring, but as far as I know the console knows when it’s got E74. It then makes sure it doesn’t give you the RRoD. As you say, the only side effect of wrapping it in a towel is that it might start working again for a short while.
If they do decide to extend the warranty, I know I’ll be pissed after having to buy a new console. Mind you, either way sucks.
Don’t have to make it red ring. Just say it did, and hope they don’t send you it straight back.
Well im going to keep trying, im to cheap to pay £78 to get it repaired. And if push comes to shove ill upgrade get an elite or something… But i know the graphic issues im getting are becoming more and more severe as well as more common.
What exactly is an E47 error? I’ve never heard anything about this before now.
Its a single red light in the bottom left corner, and your 360 simple say contact support with a massive E 74. As wardrox said it seems to be a graphics issue or one related to the AV out put from what ive found. I may get some pics tomorrow but for now im going to sleep.
damn you bb code
Michael from Xbox Evolvd actually alerted everyone about the E 74 error. Can you link him to?
http://xboxevolved.e-mpire.com/article/No_Title/5202.html
@Poop: I don’t think any specific person really started alerting people to the E74. I know I wrote an article back in June ’08 about E74 for Ripten.
Though, the article you linked to is a good example of the growing “hey.. umm… is this new? It seems to be happening a lot” trend of posts.
I’m not going to edit the main article, but your comment links to xbox evolved so if people are reading this far, they can click and read (which I recommend) :)
I recieved an E74 code and called xbox support and they pretty much told me I’m screwed, so I called the warranty number on our Best Buy reciept. They told me that they would email me a shipper label and that I could return it for no additional cost and send me a “gift card” of the value of the xbox minus tax and warranty, so I could purchase a new one. It took about one week from the time I shipped it to recieve the card. The next day we bought a brand new one. It is as easy as that. I would not call xbox support, but call the number on the warranty reciept.
@OrgunDonor: Call the warranty number on your reciept not xbox support and you can get a new one.
@rawjmw: Except im from the UK… and I brought from Woolworths who unfortunately in this economic climate failed… Epically and now no longer exist.
@OrgunDonor: oh that isnt good. well i think it is a scam that they are making people who have already spent hundreds of dollars on the system and the warranty and won’t honor the warranty. it shouldn’t matter what went wrong, xbox should cover it.
Yea but to be fair the warranty is a 12 month warranty not a 14 month warranty(working in tech support i can appreciate that more then most). However it does suck, as it is more like shoddy manufacturing rather then something that just can happen. However, my console it getting ever closer to the red ring.
@OrgunDonor: Yeah we bought the 2 year warranty on it so it was easy to return it.