_610x457.jpg)
(Credit:
Photobucket)
First, there was the Red Ring of Death (RRoD) epidemic. It struck thousands of early Xbox 360s and led Microsoft to announce in 2007 that it would repair all afflicted consoles free of charge and offer an extended three-year warranty on those machines.
The latest XBox 360 bug? The "E74 error," which has become enough of problem that Microsoft has had to announce that it will repair all consoles affected by it--and extend its three-year warranty to cover any potential E74 problems.
Like the Red Ring of Death, it's not hard to figure out whether you have an E74 error. Instead of your console displaying three red lights, death comes swiftly in the form of an E74 on-screen error message that appears along with instructions to contact Xbox 360 support.
According to Gamezine.co.uk, the E74 error is "either related to the AV cable, or the more fatal occurrence of a burnt-out scaler chip or even the death of the console's GPU." (Apparently, the error isn't 100 percent fatal, and while there are some suggested fixes up on YouTube, they don't always work--or they work only temporarily).
Here is Microsoft's official statement:
While the majority of Xbox 360 owners continue to have a great experience with their console, we are aware that a very small percentage of our customers have reported receiving an error that displays "E74" on their screen.
After investigating the issue, 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. As a result, we have decided to cover repairs related to the E74 error message under our three-year warranty program for certain general hardware failures that was announced in July 2007.
Microsoft also said it will refund anyone who paid to have an E74 error-afflicted console fixed. If you fall into this group, you should automatically receive a refund within the next 4 to 12 weeks. However, if you don't get your money back, you should go to the Xbox support page before November to get info on how to place a claim.
Gamemagazine notes that for now, the announcement covers only Xbox 360s in the United States. But it expects the warranty and refund to be rolled out around the world soon.
Comments? Anybody had their Xbox 360 offed by error E74? Is the console destined to be plagued by reliability problems, or is this just an isolated incident?
(Source: Gamezine.co.uk via Engadget)
Tim Geisenheimer joins the show today along with our favorite former intern, Mark Licea. We talk about Tim's new Kindle 2 and how Amazon decided to release a free iPhone app. That's $359 down the drain for Tim. Along the way, we discuss the Red Ring of Death for the Xbox 360 and a surprise guest appearance by Justin Yu himself, who reveals he's been suffering from multiple outbreaks of yet-to-be-classified STDs.
The Geisenblogger himself shares a little bit about his online persona in the form of his Tumblr, Wordpress blog, and Twitter. "Thriller" has got to be one of the best albums ever made, but Michael Jackson apparently has a stash of songs he won't release to the public until after his death. While we're not too excited about that after the failure of his "Invincible" album, we are excited that he is trying to make right with Sir Paul McCartney for supposedly bequeathing the Beatles collection to him after his death. Take this all with a grain of salt as this is coming from the Internet and The 404.
A woman in Florida gets more than she bargained for when she calls 911 three times to report that McDonald is not giving Chicken McNuggets to her. It sounds crazy until you realize that McDonald's tried to offer her a cheeseburger called the "McDouble" instead of a refund. Finally, if you're a Sprint customer, the company is offering $100 in the form of a Visa gift card if you refer a new Sprint customer. For those of you who managed to sneak in the SERO plan, here's a way to get three months of free service.
... Read more
Update (12:57 p.m.): The story now reflects Microsoft's response to a request for comment.
For Xbox 360 users, the so-called red ring of death is a worst-case scenario that can cause nightmares about total system failure and the inability to play any more Halo 3.
Since the introduction of the console, in late 2005, some users have suffered through a well-documented series of quality control problems and some have endured system failures on machine after machine after machine.
Microsoft has attempted to handle the problems--and last year extended the warranty for the machine, leading some to feel that, at the very least, they would be covered if they got the three red rings around their console's power button that indicate total hardware crash.
The 'red ring of death' is the last thing any Xbox 360 user wants to see, as it indicates massive system failure.
(Credit: CNET Networks)All along, the problem has been blamed on the Xbox's original motherboard, a poorly designed piece of electronics that in many cases simply wasn't up to the rigors that users put the machine through. But there had been indications that help was on the way in the form of an all-new motherboard, at once smaller, more efficient, less likely to overheat and less expensive, known as "Jasper."
Now, according to Xbox expert Dean Takahashi at Venture Beat, Jasper-infused Xboxes are finally being spotted out there in the wilds of the marketplace. And presumably, fans of the platform are singing hosannas at the prospect that maybe, finally, some of their brethren might be able to boot up Gears of War without fear of doom.
Actually, Takahashi poses the question of whether Xbox fans will go for the new machines. But I'm not sure why anyone would rather not have an Xbox with the new motherboard instead of one that could blow up--not literally, of course--at any time.
To be sure, those whose original model Xboxes haven't crashed don't really have a choice, and I don't see hordes of owners of the console rushing out to buy a new one. But if you've been holding off on buying one, and find that you have a choice, what would hold you back?
According to a blog called Joeygadget, "The key things to look for when buying a new Xbox 360 with the Jasper chipset is a manufacturing date (MFR) as early as 2008-08-06, Lot 8031 and up, and Team CSON."
Another site, the Xbox 360 DVD Drive Database, reports there is no "substantial evidence that it's out yet."
For its part, Microsoft wouldn't say whether any Jasper Xboxes were on the market yet. "We are constantly updating internal components on our consoles," the company told CNET News, "and therefore will not comment on details of specific components or manufacturing processes."
Either way, it sounds like the era of the red ring of death, at least for new buyers, could well be drawing to a close.
And this is important since, with Microsoft's recent price reductions for the Xbox--the "Arcade" version of the console is now available for $199--it is likely that there will be large numbers of new buyers, especially this holiday season. Unless, that is, the economic situation holds buyers back.
My question is, will the Xboxes with the new motherboard have a smaller power supply than the ugly behemoth that came with the original machine?
New and improved!
While the reported cases were few and far between, last week's PlayStation 3 firmware update 2.40 rendered a select few consoles completely useless. Sony had removed the upgrade just a day after the highly anticipated patch was released and claimed it was "looking into it."
Well it seems a week was all that was needed as the very bug-free, nonbroken firmware Version 2.41 is currently available for download. All of the features we told you about appear to remain intact in addition to a newer platinum trophy icon.
We should note that if you were one of the unlucky few to get a bum PS3 as a result of the upgrade, we recommend you get in touch with Sony customer support right away. The problem doesn't appear to be fatal, meaning your console can most likely be revived--unlike those nasty red-ring-of-death errors the Xbox 360 suffers from.
The Red Ring of Death nicely accents the faux wood finish.
"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero," wrote Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk. The same, it would seem, is true of Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console. The general hardware failure known as the Red Ring of Death has affected many thousands of consumers (Microsoft won't say exactly how many), including nearly everyone we know in the video game industry (and that's a lot of people). However, our main Xbox 360 console has always been fine, and is arguably one of the oldest systems still in the wild, with a manufacture date of October 29, 2005.
That is, until this past Sunday, when after playing a little Call of Duty 4, our system froze up while on the Xbox dashboard. Rebooting the system led to the now-infamous red lights around the power button.
Fortunately, Microsoft has received reasonably high marks for its extended no-questions-asked warranty program for the Red Ring of Death, which started over the summer and will reportedly cost the company up to $1.15 billion. On the Xbox support Web site, the company says it has had, "an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles," and the current three-year warranty is long enough to cover any system purchased since the system's launch.
We'll be packing our old Xbox 360 up for return this week, and hopefully it will go as smoothly as we've heard from our friends and colleagues.
- prev
- 1
- next
