April 14th 2009 12:43 pm PT

Very nice to see that you are fixing it. I made the support call this morning and my coffin is on the way. I bought a new 360 when my old one broke, and now that I am getting this one fixed, I will have two 360′s!

A small percentage? Haha. It must suck knowing you have to keep personal opinions and thoughts to yourself.

Cool beans.

Nice to see that Microsoft is finally going to stand up for these systems like they did with the RR0D.

Great. Now please do something for people who have a faulty graphics chip. 18 months of 360 gaming and now my screen is black. Doesn’t seem right…

“as well as reimbursing any customers that have already paid for an E74 related repair”

<3

Considering you guys just could’ve done the whole “faceless corporation” thing and made the warranty extension apply to future repairs only, I certainly appreciate it.

Hey so if I understand this right. I will automatically get a check in the mail,by July?

lol I’m still in the percentage that thinks e74 is coding that was tucked into NXE to replace or reduce the red ring indicator. Nice to see the gaming press brought light to the issue and prompted this change.

I’m still sporting a launch day Xbox 360 without a single problem.

G/J That’s what the people need to hear to help them have confidence in Xbox!!!

@TheMacJedi Thats cool for you… but I don’t think I’m alone in saying…. so what?

While it’s better than nothing and I commend MS for acknowledging the issue and proactively doing something about it; How about they fix the cause of the problems instead of slapping an extended warranty? While they are at it, they should fix the laggy guide.

Thanks, this will please a few people.

Fantastic news!
I just recently experienced the exact same problem. Now I just hope I can get my precious 360 back ASAP so I can start playing Asault on Dark Athena.

Excellent news. I sent in my console for an E74 repair in January and had to pay $99 as it was past the year warranty. I am glad Microsoft will be handling the refunds and no action is required by the customer. This certainly does help alleviate some of the frustration I felt when I had to send my console in.

That’s one problem down, now for the weak disk drive. What was wrong with the Gamecube’s or the PS1′s disk trays, seriously. Keep it simple.

@rogXue
I got the E74 back in October 2007 and a quick search online showed that plenty of others had it back then too. From what I’ve seen online it’s caused by the solder joints cracking on the ANA chip.

I have 3 Xbox’s and 2 of them have “E74″-ed twice and only once have they “3 RRoD”-ed. My first E74 was under repair but my latest E74 Xbox is just sitting there. Now I can have 3 WORKING 360′s, yay!

I like the part: “we have determined that the E74 error message can indicate the general hardware failure that is associated with three flashing red lights error on the console.”

You make it sound like the people who made the Xbox only JUST figured that they made the 3 RRoD error into the E74 so they wouldn’t have to pay for repairs. Sounds like a scam to me and MS just got busted!

This is a little late my Elite had a e74 code 13 days past the one year warranty.Service said there was nothing they could do unless i paid for repairs instead of waiting 4-6 weeks for repairs i bought a new arcade wow 4 broken consoles this is a slap in the face.I guess this good for the future.

A small percentage? Lmao.

Does anyone else still have a working Launch console? My launch box is used nearly every day and still works like a charm.

Oops I just saw that MacJedi beat me to it. So there are at least 2 of us. lol

On a side note, my second console has failed on me twice.

Although I’m glad MS is addressing it, I wish they would stop saying things like “very small percentage”. If the problem really affected only a “very small percentage”, it would not be in the news like it is.

I bought at launch. I alway pay my yearly warranty/lease for using my 360. I have to send it in for routine maintenance about every 8 months. Maybe MS should go the route of car dealers, and just lease 360′s.

Any estimate on when the online repair setup at xbox.com gets updated to include the 3 year warranty for e74 failures? I just checked and it just talks about the special warranty for 3 red lights.

I have two consoles, The Elite and Pro versions. I have personally never had any problems with either. It’s good to know that if something does happen to one of my consoles, then MS will fix it with no charge.

Definately looking forward to my refund!!!
Shame it was paid for on the in-laws card but I’ll get my cash back from them.
This is and Outrun being 800points is definately a step in the right direction.

tirkon: send it in for routine maintenance? Where do you send it to? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

On a side note, I think leasing 360s is a dumb idea. They’re not that expensive, and a lease would cost a LOT more.

Guess I’m another one of the lucky ones… Launch console still works perfect!

I’ve heard it from some people…and seen it demonstrated on YouTube, that E 74 problems can sometimes be temporarily remedied with the so called “Three Towels trick”. I’m not saying I tried it –wink, wink– but I read that it works as a way to continue gameing while waiting for the 360 coffins to arrive.

*rant* I’ve sent my 360 away THREE times now to be fixed as it keeps freezing. Each time the complete imbeciles return it without fixing it saying “no fault found”. Seriously, first you struggle to get them to understand you (the CC is in India and it’s hell on earth trying to get yourself understood) and then each time I ship the box for repair they stick it on some crappy soak test and return it. Why in god’s name would I want to keep shipping back a working console for repair????? Jeez! /rant

@Tidal

I have a friend who had the same thing. Sent their console in because it kept getting disk read errors, but the first time it got sent back without anything done at all. The second time they had UPS arrive without any warning. Third attempt it went back and they actually replaced the DVD-ROM drive.

I was lucky, when my 360 failed after 2 years it they replaced the motherboard AND DVD-ROM drive. The console had RROD and the DVD-ROM had been slowly wearing out, but I was still shocked they actually replaced it.

It does seem to be pot luck though. I notice there are a few different service centres and which one they use seems to determine the likelihood if it being fixed.

my xbox elite got the E 74 2 weeks ago just wait here for it to come back

“as well as reimbursing any customers that have already paid for an E74 related repair.”

I’m just curious as how that will work

Great, now what about my brother’s 360 that keeps getting two flashing lights five minutes after playing a game? It happened one week after our warranty expired. Seems stupid to pay yearly for Xbox Live and now $99 per year to even have a working 360 at all due to crappy system parts. And he’s too young to have a job, meaning it’s coming out of either me or my mother’s pockets.

I have to applaud Microsoft for taking care of their customers like this; I just hope I don’t get E74 now or another RROD since my 3 years are up.

I got the E74 error back in July ’07. Luckily I got my Xbox back at the end of August and was playing on a new console in time for Halo 3. This error is far from new and find it funny how people are talking about it now.

Kuji PR: a cheque, probably.

“Today’s announcement reaffirms our commitment to customers that we stand behind our products and deliver a great Xbox experience.”

No; it reaffirms that Microsoft has not fixed the RROD problem, but instead covered it up with an error message.

I have been through 3 warranty repairs and now I’m out of warranty on my 4th box. Each time my console failed for a different reason: 1. Disc drive failure, 2. RROD, 3. Screen freezing and eventually complete console failure all within 2 days of use.

None of the 3 previous Xbox 360′s I owned lasted for more than 8 months. Possibly the only reason my current one still works is because I haven’t been playing it as much since I bought my PS3 in July 2008. I now buy all multiplatform games for PS3 so I don’t have to worry about my console crashing and not being able to play my games. Plus, the free online multiplayer.

Microsoft has lost my trust. I didn’t get an original xbox because I didn’t need it or have the money to support two console game libraries. I took a chance a rooted for the American console this time. I ended up getting slapped in the face with pay-for multiplayer and hardware that often fails.

I will not be buying the next xbox until at least 2 years or more after launch so that I can evaluate the console from the outside without going through what I did this generation. Microsoft really let me down with the Xbox 360 and the many decisions that I have not agreed with.

Sure, I still game on my 360 every now and then, but it’s use has gone down significantly due to repairs and fear of having to pay for one out-of-pocket now that my warranty expired (Dec 08).

What about E73?

“a very small percentage”

“commitment to customers that we stand behind our products”

Just so you know, if my launch unit breaks down again and they try to charge me for a repair then I’m selling all my 360 stuff and buying something else, it’d be cheaper!

I hope the next xbox is much more reliable. As great as the Xbox 360 is, it’s gonna go down as one of the biggest pieces of hardware crap ever made. Every time I turn my Xbox 360 on I hope and pray that it doesn’t red ring. Now it looks like I have something else to look out for with this E74 BS. I really can’t get around the fact, that as a piece of hardware, the Xbox 360 is a disaster. At least MS is good about fixing them, of course if your one of the unlucky ones having a hard time with customer service and actually getting it fixed, then you probably don’t share those sentiments.

Now if only MS could fix my wife. Every time I try to turn her on, I get an E69 error.

All I have to say is, why did it take Microsoft three weeks to decide to honor my valid service contract (expires Feb. 2010) to fix my E74. So now I get to wait another three weeks most likely waiting for transit times, on top of the three weeks I just spent constantly on the phone with customer service reading off the entire service contract word for word, just to hear them say “sorry sir, we cannot repair your console”. I figured since I purchased the warranty, it would be good on any kind of repair. At least the next repair I go through won’t be so rough I suppose, with this new E74 policy. Seriously how does every customer service rep not believe the customer, they made me seem like some kind of fool who didn’t know what a service contract was, and how to operate a console that I have been using for almost four years.

People need to understand percentiles better…Lets say there are 10 million XBOX 360′s sold..now we can consider 5% a small percentile, which equates to 500 000….the internets makes it seem like everyone who has a console and then some people who dont have had this error.

You can also skew the stats however you want, for example, I have 1 console but it has failed 3 times, now MS will take the stats as 1 console sold and 1 fail making my personal rate 100%, whereas internetland will say I had 3 failures for 1 console bought giving me a 300% failure rate, either way the stats are skewed.

Sounds like you’re taking the proper PR steps in admitting something is wrong but are willing to resolve the problem. Kudos!

“Very small percentage” my ass. I personally know three people that have gotten E74 errors this year alone.

Also, at this point, can we just get the entire freakin console covered for three years?

And why stop at three years? It’s been almost two years since the new warranty was unveiled, and there is still no such thing as Xbox 360 durability.

MAJOR: I purchased an extended warranty and still had 10mo-1 year left on my box before sending in 3rd 360 when it got the E74 error. I find out after I get the 4th one back that I only have a 90 day warranty (which is now up), I think, on the latest one… is this going to be corrected?

I think that’s fair. I once had an E74 that quickly became a RRoD, so I was covered. Once the console turned RRoD, it never recovered from it, and I never saw the E74 again. So I think it’s fair to say the two issues are related. And I’m glad to see MS being fair about the repairs, both past and present. I’d just like to see these hardware issues go away.

That 90 day warranty is what they give you if you get a refurb instead of your repaired console…I went through that, after having purchased the extended warranty, and sent my launch console back (eject button broke and kept spitting my discs out in the middle of a game), then the refurb gets the E74 after four months…I was told my original warranty and extended warranty (that I paid for) were invalid as they covered the “replaced” console, and my refurb had a 90 day, that was of course expired. I took the hit and traded in with some promotion at GS and got an Arcade, and haven’t had a problem yet (fingers crossed).

FYI, the new chipsets do seem to be free of the E74/ RRoD “high percentages”, as the only real problems I hear about are people whose systems start eating discs (usually when it is first opened, and due mainly to UPS and other shipping companies mis-handling cartons…or MS not packing them properly, take your pick). My Arcade and RE5 Elite run whisper quiet, super cool, and I have no complaints.

All 3 times they never offered to to fix my box but always sent me a refrub, my 1st and 2nd the warranty carried over to those… this one it did not.

It’s so true what was said above about telephone customer support (TidalPhoenix). Wouldn’t it be great if a company committed to using U.S. call centers for U.S. customer service calls? My opinion of that company would go way up. I know it costs more but what does upsetting your customers cost you? What is customer loyalty worth?

My issue isn’t with offshoring per se, it’s that the quality of the service from Indian call centers tends to be lower. You get what you pay for.

(I was Googling for the name of that big Indian call center company while writing this and I discovered that Chrysler is bringing their call centers back to America from India.)

By the way, if my XBox breaks again and it’s not free to fix, I’m headed back to Sony. I like the GTA4 DLC, but not that much. Sony hardware is solid. My PS2 still works just fine.

EXCELLENT TIMING!!! WHY???

Because I got that error a week ago and um… I’M BORED!!!

But seriously… this is great timing as I’m out of a job and my normal extended warranty expired. Thanks to the Microsoft/Xbox team x 1,000,000,000!!!

Last summer I had am E74 error on a referb after 3RROD and rather then paying over $100 for a repair I bought a new core system and just added my old hard drive. If anyone finds my old system in the dump please send it back to me so I can send it in and get a reber as a back up.

Bearcub13: Why didn’t you toss it up on ebay, probably would have gotten $50 for it.

Although people in the know have always known e74 is gpu related the same as rrod
I am glad someone high enough has stood up and put theyr head on a platter like peter moore

Even if the guy looses his job well done for standing up for what is right even if it is a bit late

Cool, now just fix how slow the damned Guide is…

“Small percentage”…lol. If it was a small percentage they wouldn’t bother extending the warranty to 3 years.

My xbox got a few E74 errors while it was slowly getting a permanent 3RROD.

My Xbox elite recently stopped working, there’s audio and no video and no error message or three flashing lights like my other one, i tried everything so i got a X360 arcade my third Xbox 360 if that breaks, well i love Xbox so much i will most probably buy a new one.

grrrrrrrrrrr “thank you microsoft” why couldent have they done this in december. lol had to repair it my self as microsoft wanted £90 she works great but i keep geting the dam e74 like every 3weeks but i got some of the wisper fans and its works nice now. the entender warrenty is anoing cos atless 5 of my mates have had e74 aswell and iv had to fix them well what ever more money for me out of the 20 or so iv fixed 2 have been rrod and the rest have been e74 so i think its more of a problem the rrod was

Um maybe you should start looking into the disk drive failures now. All of my friends are having trouble reading discs. A brand new game just out of seal with nothing at all on it will not load on any of our xbox 360′s (that’s 8 xbox 360′s).

How embarrassing for you Microsoft.

My friend is going to be pissed when he hears about this. He JUST got his back from MS and paying $100 to fix his E74. lol

This is great news.

Dammit I got the E74 mid February and since it wasn’t covered I had to buy a new elite. I guarantee my case is still on file at MS I would love a refund but I doubt it. Regardless MS will still be getting a call from me in the next few days.

I too find the term “a small percentage” a tad offensive, having 2 RRoD 360s and 1 E74.
Perhaps I’m just woefully unlucky?

Still… I’ll accept this compromise.
I’m sad to say however, that I have lost faith in MS as competent video game console manufactures.
I can’t see myself picking up the 360′s eventual successor

for every time i turn on my 360 my 360 restarts by itself randomly once. i switched the 360′s in my room and living room to see if it was a problem on my xbox and still it keeps restarting. i took off the hdd and still it keeps restarting. its getting annoying. its not my hdd, its not my xbox, its not the disc cause it already happened with another game. so it has to be the nxe??? or what??? please help!

Finally ! I lost 2 Xbxo due to the E74 error and my Warranty is about to end, so I was really worried. Thanks for realising it.

you’re welcome

So I thought E71 errors were eradicated. My coffin arrives this week for E71.

Couldn’t get a RROD. Couldn’t get E74. I have to be unique and still get to pay for my repairs. Again.

I have spent so much time and money and love on this console and its franchises – and you guys make it really hard some days. Especially the guys in India on the support line who have no clue. Dated an Indian once. He knew all about computers and stuff. You should see if has family there he could train to work the dang phones.

Enjoy my $99.

@Spondalee and I don’t care if everyone gets a broken 360. One of mine got e74 so, I just junked it and bought another. 360′s don’t cost more than the change I keep in my car’s ashtray.

my first console had that error one time but then it suddenly disappeared, it was way before the NXE update

Why dont microsoft better have a 3 year warranty on any errors they have with its console?

thumbs up~!!!

Good news
Xbox360 is great !!!
I have PS3 too,but SONY’s Warranty is suck

Sony’s console doesn’t break every 6 months… and there XMB isn’t laggy!

im on my 3 xbox360 last 2 got rrod now last week on the 3 xbox360 i got E74 and all this in 3 years this is mad

can they just make one that will stop the RROD and the E 74 money does not grow on trees or just make the xbox360 even more cheaper

It’s about time. My 1 year old Elite model e74′d a little over a month ago, but after reading a bunch of articles about it, I ultimately decided to wait and see what happened- I had a feeling Microsoft would eventually realize they were setting themselves up for another lawsuit. I don’t necessarily believe MS would stoop so low as to alter the way their consoles report hardware failure for the sake of saving some bucks, but then again, it’s hard to ignore the fact that e74 errors have been on the rise since the NXE update. Besides, it’s pretty obvious that the RROD and e74 errors are both caused by the same thing- poor soldering- which is the manufacturers fault. To deny customers an extended warranty on the e74 error knowing it was caused by the same manufacturing flaw as the RROD was an extremely poor call on Microsoft’s behalf. If I were MS, I would consider myself very lucky they have the game library they do, and extremely fortunate that they haven’t lost too many customers yet over these manufacturing issues.

In any event, I’m glad MS decided to rectify the situation. I sent out for a coffin earlier today, so hopefully I’ll have a fixed Xbox in about a week.

I just got it today. Great timing.

I love how it goes “A very small percentage” when concerning how many of us have had the RROD, especially E74.

Yeah right, MY ASS, Major.

Glad to hear there’s still some magic.. er.. money left in the coffers.
Unfortunately my problem from last Easter weekend is a bum disc drive. From a 3-lights replacement machine of course, and no error message to call in. I have a threshold that if I can’t replace or repair the drive myself for under $50 then it’s time to buy a PS3. But at least I can catch up on all my XBLA games.

Major,

I post here fairly regularly and always try and keep it objective will try to do so again this time.

That said, this is very clear consumer feedback I would like to make sure gets through to the 360 Dev Project Management team (for it is them I would envisage responsible for the shortcuts taken in development).Please please learn your lessons from this and don’t do this again. I fully understand the cost/benefit rationale that will have come into play in terms of releasing an immature console early to the market.I understand the business needs that will have been satisfied by shortcutting the development process. With that in mind, what MSFT (as a relative newcomer in the console market) can’t quantify is the risk associated with that gamble. The customers that will be subsequently lost because of this issue is unquantifiable in terms of long term risk. I am ‘brand loyal’ to the Xbox but having had 3 consoles RROD – I would think carefully about purchasing any next-gen product MSFT produce. If you doubt me, come down to Australia and meet the people who prefer to buy a $700 AUD PS-3 because they perceive the $299 (steal IMO) Xbox360 is “completely unreliable”. I would say that a working 360 in a retail outlet here in my suburb of Brisbane is the exception rather than the rule (although who advised them to encase the 360 in a perspex housing needs a brain transplant)

Seriously dude, the best thing MSFT could do here is stop patronising people with ‘corporate spin’ and ‘fess up. We are a community are we not? Be transparent with us and let us know the real in’s and out’s of what’s going on with E74/RROD. I’m not sure that ‘perception managing’ your consumer is the best approach to maintaining/increasing brand loyalty in the long run.

HFC

I got the E74 error back in March of 2007. Am I going to get my money back for the out of warranty service?

mine works fine.. never had rrod or this e74.

Having just purchased my 2nd 360 its great to see MS stand behind the 360.

BTW: The reason i have a new 360 is because i wanted a Red Elite my other console was 12 months old and never RROD or E74

Firstly, I expect no comment on this, but I want to vent somewhere…..

My console E74′d, and as far as the research the joystick.com did, its no where near a “small percentage” of people, however, MS fixed my xbox360, for free, back in November.

No onto my main point, this GOD DAMN guide lag/freezing/general lag.

This is DEFINATLY related to xbox live connection, I moved house this weekend, and because I have no interent connection yet, I am having to play my xbox sans live, and it bloody FLIES!!!!, its so fast, no lag, no freezing, also a game that used to take AGES to load (Midnight Club LA), now loads in a fraction of the time.

The only thing thats different is the lack of live connection, as before in my old house with the live connection, it was like wading through treacle.

MS, there are problems, please sort them out.

@ UnHoly One
mine still works like a charm too. Had it standing up for the first two years untill it started to freeze every now and then. Now I have it on it’s side and has been working fine ever since. I guess we’re just lucky.

ontopic, it’s good to see MS does care for it’s customers. Not many company’s offer a refund of paid repairs…

Great to know!
My Warranty on my 360 expires on Friday. So if i get the RRoD or the E74 message again. I’ll be set.

Thanks Microsoft!

Wait.. Why isn’t every problem associated with the xbox360 covered under a 3 year warranty? The hardware is obviously faulty given the enclosure and small cooling solution.

A “very small percentage”? ya right.

I think it should be made so that every time an xbox needs repair for the red rings, the 3 year warranty should reset.

about time MS finally acknowledged this problem. I got this last November, luckily I got the extended warranty from Best Buy, so all I had to do was take it back and exchange it for a new one

This is awesome, especially the refund part.

Now if only MS would fix the marketplace taking 30+ seconds to load and stop the party game DLC from flooding the new releases screen we’ll be good!

Thoughts/Comments, from someone who is extremely familiar with xbox hardware and has repaired all generations/iterations of xbox’s dating back to the launch xbox1′s:

First, this is definitely a good thing for consumers. Once again, I fault Microsoft for not doing something SOONER officially about this and charging so many customers for repairs on faulty hardware, but, offering refunds is a great move in repairing the PR damage again, like they did with the 3RL refunds. However see this for what it truly is: A lawsuit dodge, just like the 3RL fiasco. This isn’t really “your buddy Microsoft” trying to do right by you, this is a desperate attempt to get people from not making a class action suit about these failures. It is very sad that it takes all this bad press to get them to do something when they obviously know the true extent of these problems at least from having seen first hand all of the repairs they get!

E74 errors are nothing new, even launch consoles can/will get them. It’s sad to me that it has taken them this long to start to address the other “less common” errors that ALL 360′s can get – and that they’re only addressing one more of them. It is just one of many, signs of failure of the BGA on the various chips on the 360 board. The RAM, CPU, GPU, and Scaler chips all have BGA’s that are subject to failure based on thermal cycle stress. Sure, the newest Jasper consoles are FAR less likely to get such BGA failures, and that a launch Xenon console is nothing more then a ticking timebomb, but – these problems are still VERY widespread until EVERYONE has updated to Jasper class 360 hardware or newer. Until then, even if you’ve last Falcon console, this is nothing more then a waiting game. You will have failure, and it’s just a matter of when.

What still upsets me, is that e74 and the 3RL are only two of many such symptoms all related to the same problem of BGA failure. No video and just sound, console hardlocks, video corruption, inexplicable and instantaneously overheating aka 2RL, and various other “E” error codes, all point to BGA failure. If all of these symptoms and problems relate to the same bad hardware failure and design flaws, why aren’t they ALL covered under this warranty program? Why not say “better safe then sorry” on repairs? Why this ridiculous requirement of specific error codes when all of these failures point at the same problems?!

Furthermore, I understand WHY Microsoft has to say “the majority of users continue to have great experiences with their consoles” or that the “percentage of people seeing this error is small” etc. It would be a PR nightmare if they told the “whole” truth. It’s not entirely a lie see, as many users ARE having a great experience with their CURRENT hardware – because they’ve already REPLACED their 360 with a newer one, or had their current consoles repaired already! MOST of my friends including myself, are already on at LEAST their 2nd 360, if not their 3rd or 4th!

What Microsoft needs to do however, is notice that PS3 sales are slowly catching up. Why are so many people, who likely have or have had, a 360, buying a PS3, especially in light of poor software selection? If Microsoft doesn’t see the correlation between LARGE SCALE hardware failure and people jumping ship to a more reliable console, they should. Many people I know locally have silently without even bothering to look into repair, got rid of their 360′s and bought a PS3 due to the hardware issues. Many other people have purchased a PS3 in addition to their 360, in order to ensure they’ll have a working console when their 360 dies.

If Microsoft really wants to do the right thing, they need to cover all the aforementioned errors and symptoms of this design flaw and failure, under the same warranty program they’ve created for the 3RL, and E74. Until then they are merely skewing the truth and upsetting their loyal customers and installed base.

PS – Fix the dashboard lag. It is unbearable. The original dash on the 360 was badly slow considering the speed of the architecture it’s running on. The NXE was a bit faster and simpler to use. That’s good. But the last few weeks they’ve done something to break NXE and now it is ungodly slow – check a message or send an invite etc. while in a game, and you are likely to die multiple times before you can return to playing. It’s absolutely terrible. I never likely the “centralized” and “standardized” 360 friends interface etc – Halo 2′s on Xbox1 was by far the best!! Instant invites, messages etc. We need to get back to that.

Bravo! I sent mine in with E74 thinking I’d get a bill – instead I got my unit back, working well, and a card for another month on Live. Excellent!

Please make the marketplace downloads load faster as the featured downloads section takes ages to load when you select some content

regards

woozydan 25

Greatttttt… My orginal xbox had broken three times and every single time i got the exact same one back just “fixed.” So when i got this error i wasn’t about to spend money to get another “fixed” version of mine and decided to geta new opne and fix that one myself for my brother. Well now it’s at the point wher ei can’t stop getting the E74 error so I just gave up on it. And NOW they come out with a free fix for it after I broke the warranty seal. This all happened about 2 months ago too.

My xbox broke 3 weeks ago and now they come up with this deal. The only thing that’s bathering me is that I sold that and bought a new one with 2 year warranty on it…Nevermind now!!!

Good news – although this should have been extended in the first place when the techies re-aliased some of the RROD errors to E74. ROFL! All is well again.

Thats good, but what about doing something about the faulty disc drives? My disc drive cannot read game discs 99% of the time, and when it can it becomes unreadable within a minute so I’m stuck with a system where I can only play arcade titles and watch netflix movies. When the next MS console comes out will there be bumpers to protects disc and more importantly will there be better disc drives from one solid source? And how about a warranty like 5 years for all problems relating to the console not just 1 or 3 years for a couple issues? I paid 400 plus for my original pro and now its like a brick and my Wii is getting more play time which is sad.

@TheMacJedi

You must really suck at gaming to have such a low GamerScore after owning an 360 for that length of time!!!

Hopefully this doesn’t happen to me I’ve already had rrod like 6 times. I wish you guys would put out a 360 with a new design that isn’t such an epic fail. The only reason I’m still with you is the other system has no games or dlc support for the ones they do have like Fallout 3. Speaking of an epic fail ‘the pitt’ fiasco really was just that. PS I LIKE TO COMPLAIN. ALOT.

While I am glad that his issue is covered under the extension for the RROD, It’s a shame it takes the gaming press to bring this to light and force a change. No doubt it wouldn’t have been acknowledged had it not been for them. Same thing happened with the original RROD. And then it gets spun into “small number” and “commitment” spiel.

Next issue for the press to bring to light a bit more…scratched discs, lack of disc cushioning pads in the drives and inability of certain drives to withstand the small shock of footsteps.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/03/xbox_360.html

Great News and smart move. This should have been done a while ago perhaps as soon as the E74 Error was widely known. Nevetheless MS Has made the right decision IMO and at least is starting to admit the XBOX 360 Has major problems.

if its only 1 percent that’s still over 200,000 E74 ERRORS

My first xbox 360, which just got this message is under a year old. It’s so frustrating getting a broken piece of hardware, that overtime you know will either get this problem or RROD.
Mircosoft needs to sort this stuff out.

I’m very please to see MS taking responsibility for this issue. I was about to conduct an investigative report on this matter for my employer (one of the two major international news outlets *1) and literally had spoken to MS on the phone starting at 4pm EST and ending at 4:48pm EST the day before this recent announcement, requesting they waive the fee to repair my Elite’s E74 error, since this has nothing to do with normal wear and tear and everything to do with faulty hardware.

After speaking with two supervisors and presenting my Press credentials they said that if I saw the RROD first, they could then waive the fee. I explained that did not happen and I was told that they were “trying to help me out”. They again asked me “are you sure you didn’t see the RROD before the E74 error?” I said I would not lie to get the repair and that they needed to address the issues of faulty hardware construction and waive the fee for that reason. I think they got spooked when I mentioned I was recording the phone conversation (which is legal since they were recording as well *2). I spoke with the India based call center and my contacts were “Kurt” and “Bernard”. I was treated with exceptional courtesy and respect and thank these gentleman for handling my phone call with such professionalism.

I hope that this is partially what prompted the announcement made the next morning around 7am regarding the OP. I also give major kudos to the two websites who compiled the data on the E74 errors, which is what attracted us to investigate the issue in the first place. Blogs and websites are what give power to the people and everyone who participated on those sites are equally responsible for pushing MS to do the right thing here.

I also agree that for MS to state that only “a very small percentage of our XBOX customers have reported receiving an error that displays E74″. This is simply not true. If you Google “XBOX E74″ you will see thousands of reports on this issue. I also would like very much for MS to replace these units with new, non-refurbished consoles, so we can benefit from the cooler running Jaspers and save headaches for both the consumer, as well as to save MS from having to repeatedly repair these units in the future.

I’m waiting for my box so I can ship out my console. Many consumers, including myself, went ahead and bought a Jasper-based Arcade console because I figured the additional $90 would at least guarantee me a cooler running machine. You will note that many of us bought the new Arcade so in the bigger picture, MS BENEFITED by refusing to pay for the repairs up to recently.

I will post an update both here and on my companies website to explain the outcome of the E74 repair and what they did for my console, since it will be dismantled immediately upon return by my technical team *3. Lets cross our fingers that they do whats right and full-out replace these with brand new up-to-date systems and not refurbs, or the story will run as is.

*1: This post is being made as an XBOX 360 and XBOX Live consumer and NOT on behalf of my employer. I may reference this post in the future.
*2: I do not advise that people use recording devices during phone conversations with MS unless they clearly understand the laws regarding wiretapping, cross-state and international law, as well as how to gain consent to conduct phone recordings.
*3: Two of which are former Microsoft employees and have participated in both refurbishing units and were the ones who explained the cause of this E74 error to me in great detail. Change can lead to something better or something worse. How you react to it makes it better or worse for you.

Microsoft Have done too little too late. The 360 has terrible reliability, I have had 4-5 xbox 360′s, lost count cos there that terrible for problems, my brother has had 2-3.

The call centers are terrible, the time you have to wait for a replacement is a joke, When a playstation 2 went wrong back in the day they would bring you a brand new console and take your old one, microsoft just take your old one for 2 weeks and in that 2 weeks open other peoples broken consoles to mix and match parts. So they start with 5 faulty 360′s, they take all the parts out of 360 number 1 to refurbish the other 4 360′s then they only have to send out 1 brand new 360.

Im not a ps3 fanboy cos i dont even own a ps3 and still play my 360 elite, But being an honest person the only thing i hate about microsoft is there customer care is awful.

Considering they are a company as big as they are im suprised no legal action has gone against them so far.

To also lie and say a small percentage of 360′s with the E74 error is a joke, do they think people dont use forums, blogs etc.

Its the same as when everyone was getting the 3 red lights of death, they reckon it was a small percentage when it blatantly wasnt.

I still wish the product just worked. I just got my refurb 360 back after my RROD. It’s louder and seemingly slower. I am just not happy with someone elses refurb after I paid good money to have my own system new . . .

Yaaay! I just got the E74 ERROR