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The Infamous E74
Alright, you and your friends are getting your game on. This is the battle of the summer, this is Halo like you've never played before, you're getting headshots left and right, you aim and--everything goes dark. A screen with strange words comes up where your battle rifle just was. It's not a prank, it's an E74 error.
You're definitely not alone. E74 has shown up on thousands of TVs across the world. This error message is joined by one red light in the fourth player spot around your Xbox's "on" button, and a black screen with a simple sentence in a bunch of not so simple languages. If you've got E74, you'll know--it says it right there on the screen!
Of the different languages the message is written in, the English words should say, "E74 System Error. Contact Xbox Customer Support." There is no harm in doing exactly that, but there is little good either. The only thing you might learn from a conversation with their automated answering machine, is that your Xbox 360 has a general hardware failure. That means it doesn't work--which you probably figured out by now.
In some cases, this problem actually doesn't originate from something inside the Xbox going bad. It could be that the AV cable, or some other cord, just isn't plugged in, or not plugged in well enough. Obviously the smart thing to do would be check this; yank out all the cords and put them all back in. Turn on your Xbox again, and see if anything changed.
Then, see if you can find yourself another AV cable. Every once in a while, an Xbox may think something inside itself is broken, when really the AV cable is to blame. With a friend's cable connected, try to run your 360. If, all the sudden, everything is back to normal, your AV cable must have somehow been damaged. If you aren't able to borrow one, however, you may be forced to skip this test.
If your E74 still hasn't gone away, there's one more thing to check--separable components. Once again, turn off your console. Then, keeping the cords in, take off the hard drive, and the controllers, etc. Without them, turn on the console. If that annoying red light is still flashing, the E74 error originated inside the Xbox 360.
When this is the case, it is typically due to the HANA chip. The video scaler microchip doesn't have to be broken. Most of the time, what is broken is its connection with the motherboard. This can happen if your Xbox overheats. That kind of heat often causes cracks or breaks in the solder holding it in place, stopping it from functioning normally. In roughly 1/10 cases, the HANA chip is fine, but the GPU has that same problem. Again, excessive heat can cause its connection with the rest of the console to become faulty, and result in E74.
About the Author About the author: Kris Nickels can help you fix your Xbox 360 fast, and in your own home. Get tons more information about common xbox errors now, and learn how to finally fix problems like RROD permanently.
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