Well after a year and a half of clean running (don't know how I went that long) I finally got the inevitable.  360 just gave me the E74 message (thank goodness I got the Red Faction game out before damage too it haha).  But I do have a question.  Is that covered under the 3 year extended warranty.  Hadn't heard anything about that unless it is something really recent. 

If not would it be better to just go ahead and drop the money for a new one or send it to MS for repair.  Or I'm actually looking into an Elite.  Even if it is under the warrant, I really need that 360 back (Prototype and Red Faction guys).  Any answers will be very helpful.  Thanks in advance.

The quicker you ship it off, the quicker you get it back.

Oh that's good. Do you have a time frame on usually how long that process takes?

Don't worry Zucas it's coverd to now man, thats why i respect MS, if they Fuck up, they take care of it.

So yeah your good, although this would be nice to have a 2nd HD console if ya know what i mean... *Nudge* *Wink* *Slap*

Nah I still got the Wii to keep me entertained.  WM+ and Tiger Woods next week so I'll be fine.  But I was really getting into Red Faction (only got to play it last night) and highly psyched for Prototype so its very bad timing. 

And I'll eventually be getting a PS3.  Actually, I was thinking of getting one maybe this week (got the money right now) but that may not be an option right now so yea. 

Buy an Elite. Sell your old one to someone after it gets fixed. Bundle it with the 2 free games you get from the Elite.

Yeap under warranty. My Falcon Elite got the same message a few weeks ago.
The good news? You'll be covered from 3 years of the date you bought it for both that and RROD. So hopefully in the next year or two MS has another price drop cause I don't wanna spend more then $125 on another XBox :P

We have two 360's in my house (one elite and one newly acrquired jasper arcade with the built in memory) because I got that error and my wife wanted to play her games badly.

Turn around time was under two weeks. They e-mail you a prepaid UPS label and I had my old coffin (aka box) from my first RROD a year ago so I just packed it up and sent it in. They got the system four days after I brought it to the UPS store (stupid holidays. gah.) and it was sent back two days after that. So yeah, under two weeks before you get your xbox back.

In the mean time I went to play with my PSP and *gasp* the Wii while waiting for it to return.

My only real issue is the stupid DRM issue with XBLA titles. Half my games didn't need to be re-downloaded to play offline, the others didn't. Not a big issue since I'm always online but if your not it can be.

Well we'll see how I play this. Just makes me sad. Had my Wii for 2 and a half years with no problems. GC for 6 years no problems. Original Xbox for 4 years with no problems. Any other thing I've owned has never had an issue. Or my bro for that matter. Kinda disappointed here. I knew it was bound to happen but that's never a good thing right.

Really don't want to take the time to send it in but I'll probably end up doing that. I still got the Wii and DS so no problem. But will definitely miss Xlive.

You can still go on xbox live through xbox.com if you really miss it.