Post by Mr. G on Dec 28, 2007 1:10:54 GMT -5
...must've came from the trip that it takes. From you, to microsoft, back to you...
And it looks like my console is taking that pilgrimage, for it died on the 26th, less than 24 hours after receiving both the special Rock Band bundle, and Ace Combat 6, not to mention the VGA adapter so I can finally stop playing in standard def.
I went downstairs early on the 26th, get a little more gaming in, and I was greeted by a flashing light in the bottom right quadrant only, and a multi lingual message saying that I need to contact XBox customer service, along with the code "E 74" at the bottom. So, I turned it off, and back on, thinking that maybe it was just the odd occurence (After all, this is the same console that had over eight RRoD's from July 31st, to August 6th). Same message, same problem.
As one would guess, I ran to the computer, and see what info that I could get about this. It turns out that "E 74" is an "A/V cable error... There is a problem with the A/V cable, try using a different A/V cable. If the cable is known to be working then there is a 90% chance it's a scaler chip problem (the "ANA" or "HANA" chip connected directly to the A/V cable) in rare cases it is the GPU." So, I did the only thing that I could test, and tried both the S-Video cable, and Component video cable (The problem occured when using the VGA cable, so that was ruled out unintentionally). No dice.
Then, I tried removing everything except the power brick, and an A/V cable (S-Video, if you're curious). I even removed the hard drive and the disc just to be safe. Still same error message.
Then, I thought about what happened earlier. Roughly at around midnight, I was playing Ace Combat 6 during the third mission. Then, out of nowhere, the screen went black, except for the hud. I mean everything went black; Environment, sky, missles, planes, everything, except for the HUD.
So, I thought that the game glitched, and decided to get a little play time in Rock Band. Yet another oddity. After a few minutes, a similar problem popped up. The HUD for that game was fine (including the note chart that you play), but the background (where there was major 3D rendering of people, crowds, environment, etc...) had weird video artifacts, such as sky blue boxes that appeared like static on a TV set in lines. Also, notifications that the 360 sent to you, such as when a message was received had vertical black lines in it, making it near impossible to read.
Judging from what I've seen, there definately were alot of stressors (new games, new peripherals, new form of video output, heck, the third time that the console was run while vertical over two years), but I believe that the GPU was the culprit. Considering that this console has never been used on a TV that's not 480i, jumping from 640x480, to 1360x768 (3.4x the number of pixels) probably pushed it too far.
Next thing that I did, I got in contact with Xbox support. I did have a little money left over from holiday shopping, since I went under budget, and was pretty much fine with paying the $140 out of warranty fee. Much to my surprise, after going through the paces of being on hold and what not, I found out that it was covered under the infamous free "RRoD/General Hardware Error" 3 warranty that many have heard of. What surprised me was that I believed that the three year warranty was only for RRoD's, but apparently, it covers all hardware errors like a dead GPU. Or maybe it won't, and I'll be getting the console back broken, but I won't know that for a couple of weeks.
Well, considering that I have spare money, I'm going to try to go hunting for any XBox 360 core/arcade's. Since I keep the hard drive from the console that failed, I can keep going.
Plus, there's the added benefit that, once I do get the repair/replacement, I have a spare, which I can lease out to people who's consoles have failed. I personally know a couple of people who are on their fourth, and several more who had to send theirs in on multiple occasions. Although it won't be to get money, it'll just be to cover the cost (and a reason) to buy a new console.
Then again, I'm getting ahead of myself, I'm still stuck without a 360...
tl;dr:
So yeah, 360's GPU fried, free replacement but taking too long, buying another.
And it looks like my console is taking that pilgrimage, for it died on the 26th, less than 24 hours after receiving both the special Rock Band bundle, and Ace Combat 6, not to mention the VGA adapter so I can finally stop playing in standard def.
I went downstairs early on the 26th, get a little more gaming in, and I was greeted by a flashing light in the bottom right quadrant only, and a multi lingual message saying that I need to contact XBox customer service, along with the code "E 74" at the bottom. So, I turned it off, and back on, thinking that maybe it was just the odd occurence (After all, this is the same console that had over eight RRoD's from July 31st, to August 6th). Same message, same problem.
As one would guess, I ran to the computer, and see what info that I could get about this. It turns out that "E 74" is an "A/V cable error... There is a problem with the A/V cable, try using a different A/V cable. If the cable is known to be working then there is a 90% chance it's a scaler chip problem (the "ANA" or "HANA" chip connected directly to the A/V cable) in rare cases it is the GPU." So, I did the only thing that I could test, and tried both the S-Video cable, and Component video cable (The problem occured when using the VGA cable, so that was ruled out unintentionally). No dice.
Then, I tried removing everything except the power brick, and an A/V cable (S-Video, if you're curious). I even removed the hard drive and the disc just to be safe. Still same error message.
Then, I thought about what happened earlier. Roughly at around midnight, I was playing Ace Combat 6 during the third mission. Then, out of nowhere, the screen went black, except for the hud. I mean everything went black; Environment, sky, missles, planes, everything, except for the HUD.
So, I thought that the game glitched, and decided to get a little play time in Rock Band. Yet another oddity. After a few minutes, a similar problem popped up. The HUD for that game was fine (including the note chart that you play), but the background (where there was major 3D rendering of people, crowds, environment, etc...) had weird video artifacts, such as sky blue boxes that appeared like static on a TV set in lines. Also, notifications that the 360 sent to you, such as when a message was received had vertical black lines in it, making it near impossible to read.
Judging from what I've seen, there definately were alot of stressors (new games, new peripherals, new form of video output, heck, the third time that the console was run while vertical over two years), but I believe that the GPU was the culprit. Considering that this console has never been used on a TV that's not 480i, jumping from 640x480, to 1360x768 (3.4x the number of pixels) probably pushed it too far.
Next thing that I did, I got in contact with Xbox support. I did have a little money left over from holiday shopping, since I went under budget, and was pretty much fine with paying the $140 out of warranty fee. Much to my surprise, after going through the paces of being on hold and what not, I found out that it was covered under the infamous free "RRoD/General Hardware Error" 3 warranty that many have heard of. What surprised me was that I believed that the three year warranty was only for RRoD's, but apparently, it covers all hardware errors like a dead GPU. Or maybe it won't, and I'll be getting the console back broken, but I won't know that for a couple of weeks.
Well, considering that I have spare money, I'm going to try to go hunting for any XBox 360 core/arcade's. Since I keep the hard drive from the console that failed, I can keep going.
Plus, there's the added benefit that, once I do get the repair/replacement, I have a spare, which I can lease out to people who's consoles have failed. I personally know a couple of people who are on their fourth, and several more who had to send theirs in on multiple occasions. Although it won't be to get money, it'll just be to cover the cost (and a reason) to buy a new console.
Then again, I'm getting ahead of myself, I'm still stuck without a 360...
tl;dr:
So yeah, 360's GPU fried, free replacement but taking too long, buying another.
