Considering the Red Ring of Death (to put it kindly) debacle, we're going to be extremely careful with what we say here. We're starting to see and receive numerous reports from readers, friends and in forums like this of Xbox 360s becoming the victims of an error labeled by the console as "E74." We've received only a few of these reports (two in '07; one in '08) prior to the recent barrage of complaints. When contacted, a Microsoft rep told Joystiq she wasn't familiar with the problem (the company is currently looking into it), so here's what we've been able to piece together by ourselves:

The E74 error seems to be related to video problems. It's occasionally caused by a faulty AV cord, but more often than not, the solder on the ANA/HANA (in HDMI models) scaling chip has come loose. In fact, many have reported creating a temporary fix by wrapping pennies in electrical tape and weighing the ANA/HANA down. (For the record, we're not suggesting you do that.) Before the error, the system usually starts showing graphical problems like lines across the screen or snow. It's accompanied by one red light in the lower right-hand quadrant.

So, we've got a poll right after the break where you can weigh in with your own experience. Also, if you've got more details, we'd love it if you would email us here.

[Update 1: Our friends at Negative Gamer just sent this interesting Google Trends result our way. As you can see, E74 was basically a non-issue until August of 2008. Interesting ...]

-Joystiq

And so it begins again.

mrstickball went off on the last person that posted this IIRC.

"creating a temporary fix by wrapping pennies in electrical tape" what will they think of next?

Yeh I know, how do people come up with this stuff? They just randomly thought of the idea? :P

So basically what this is, is an issue that really is very rare and is only getting the spotlight now because the RRoD issue is disappearing with the new hardware revision. The reason this just leaped out of no where on Google is for the same reason. One news group or forum commented on it, thus leading to others picking up the "story" etc. etc.

This issue really is not very wide spread at all. If it is just an issue with the HDMI versions (or mostly that version), then chances are quite a few people have had this fixed under warranty still. I really don't see this is anywhere NEAR as big as the RRoD. The only reason it kinda seems like a lot is because the only people who will go on and report errors online are the ones getting them!  People without these errors will not be viewing these posts are participating in the polls.  A few thousand posts (of as many as 29 thousand which I doubt there is anything near this many) on the interwebs do not even reach .1% of the Xbox 360 user base... soooo.... big issue? Nope.

Hopefully mine dosnt do this. my 360 is having issues with my HDMI port. I think its getting loose and the picture flickers until i reajust it

Totall agree with nightsurge,

This is very old news, there is no "outbreak" of E74 problems, this VERY rare problem has always been there and always will be, it's only because people can't winge about the RROD problems now so they have to try and think of new ones,

Very sad.....

well they did say that this was a non issue until August '08

^That must mean that by August the RRoD had decreased in popularity enough to try and start up something new! Yay for internet "news"!!