Error E74: Microsoft XBox 360's New Outbreak

226w ago - The problems of the infamous three red rings of death seems to have been decreased over the years, but it seems a new plague destined for failure is showing its face, error message E 74.

If you're a gamer then its no secret the Xbox 360 has its problems. From disc scratching to the notoriously known three red lights known as the RROD, it's all been said.

Since its release on November 22, 2005, many articles have appeared in the media portraying the Xbox 360's relatively high failure rates. Recently, there has been legal action taken attempting to hold Microsoft responsible for the failure rate among the Xbox 360 and provide reasonable compensation for those affected.

When the 360 console experiences a "general hardware" failure as called by the glorious MS representatives, three flashing red lights appear around the power button, in lieu of the four green lights indicating normal operation. In the early months after the console's launch, Microsoft stated that the Xbox 360's failure rate was within the consumer electronics industry's typical 3% to 5%.

Nevertheless, Microsoft has not released their official statistics on the failure rate of the various versions of the console; the company's press relations policy is to focus on the prompt resolution of any technical problems.

But they were certainly aware of the problem which brought along the extended 3 year warrant for every Xbox 360 console that experiences the "general hardware failure" indicated by three flashing red LEDs on the console.

That was cool and all but many buyers of the 360 were and still are upset at the thought of what will happen after the 3 year warranty. I'll tell you, a $100 repair bill.

As the 3RROD problem surely still persist but is no longer as wide spread as portrayed it to be, a old error is becoming very persistent in the Xbox 360 and its called the E74 error. This even happened to me back in June last year.

What you start to notice is that during gameplay, you see a lot of graphical errors on your screen and start freaking out thinking your brand new $3000 HDTV has bitten the dust. No, the problem is actually your 360. During a game its usually weird color lines all over your screen.

After a reboot the chances are you'll see this next is pictured below along with the E74 error screen.

In my recent browsing of various Internet forums along with just a Google search, I've noticed that this error seems to be happening a lot lately and it's happening is such a close time frame I started to wonder, is this another error that was just bound to happen?

Microsoft describes the problem as simply, "This behavior occurs when the Xbox 360 console experiences a hardware failure,"... yeah, no duh Microsoft. Now let's really get into the problem, the professional way.

Experts say that it's an AV cable error and here is a problem with the AV cable, try using a different AV cable. If the cable is known to be working then there is a 90% chance it's a scaler chip problem (the "ANA" or "HANA" chip connected directly to the AV cable) in rare cases it is the GPU.

This seems to be a error that was just destined to happen. Once a Microsoft rep told me it was because of wear and tear use? Really? To repair this error it would cost $100 USD because this is not covered under the 3 year extended warranty.It would seem it should be however because this is not a "wear and tear" issue but just regular use failure.

As the problem seems to be raising a lot lately, we expect Microsoft to comment on the error... or just some more lawsuits. We've contacted Xbox Support but have gotten no response yet. We may even think this recent spur of events could be the cause of the new NXE.

Feel free to comment below if you have experienced it!