Xbox 360 E74 repair question

[Huffer]

Ok, so my 3 year old Xbox kicked me then e74 error yesterday.

I already checked and cleaned the AV cable and swapped it over with a new AV cable and no dice.

This means it's the scaler chip inside on the mother board that has gone bad.

Has anyone had any good success with these online repair places that you send your Xbox to, and they repair, ship it back to you?
M$ is going to charge me $99 plus tax and shipping to do the repair, but that's a third of the way to getting the new Xbox 360 Slim w/ Kinect sensor (wife loves that thing).

Let me know guys!

[Reason]

New xbox Roger, Im waiting for mine to die so I can upgrade.

[Airgne]

i would only trust microsoft to fix my xbox, just like i only trust subaru to do headgaskets(so i get the warranty out of it also).

[elislider]

If you can get Microsoft to warranty it (they might still) then do that. Otherwise find a local craigslist person that fixes xbox's, they'll probably have a professional reflow station and charge you $40 or so and it should fix itself for another 3 years

[d1giPhux]

I'll fix it for you if you want.. i know how. Yup, gotta reflow and do a couple of other tricks. I have one I could sell you for $50 if you just want quick change while yours is being fixed? I just don't need it cause i fixed it, got it from a trade, and dont play xbox at all. Plus, i have no controllers.

[Huffer]

digi - send me a PM with details like shipping address etc. I will send you my xbox and include a box for return shipping w/ postage. Thanks for helping a brother out!

[peter]

My first 360 had that issue literally one year to the day after I got it, but I bought it online so warranty was expired. Check on Xbox.com to see if your warranty is still good, I know not long after I had that problem they added E74 errors to the 3 year RROD warranty. If not just go for the new one. Those old ones are just prone to breaking again. I had the E74 problem, payed, sent it in and received a refurbished Xbox, within a year that one crapped out (cant remember what happened but i had problems) sent that in under warranty and received yet another refurbished 360, this time though with only a 3 month warranty (total BS btw) Within a year of getting that one I started getting the open tray error. That problem got really bad to where it was nearly impossible to play a game, but I did figure out that hitting the Xbox while it was reading the disk did help. So for Christmas this year I got a nice new 360, my 4th Xbox in 4 years. Hope I have better luck with this one

[d1giPhux]

If you got any dead xboxes around you wanna give me.. i'll take em. I like to play with their guts.

[Huffer]

I decided to go with saving up for the MS repair/new Xbox Slim and if it ends up getting repaired so be it. If I manage to end up with a new one, I'll take this one apart, replace the thermal paste, modify the fan shroud, install heat vents and GPU/CPU fans and see how we roll from there.

Fortunately, I did buy another used one the week before my xbox died, specifically to use in the rec room downstairs while mine stayed in the living room. So I'm not totally xbox-less!

[Huffer]

I just bought an unlock toolkit for $4 on Amazon. It's on, sucka!

[Huffer]

So, in case anyone ever reads this or wants to know how things turned out:

I took my original Xbox 360 (HDMI) to a local electronics repairer - maxxelectronics.com - he reflowed the solder underneath the GPU chip and charged me $59, with a 4 month RROD warranty. Better than Gamestop! He took 3 days, and has a whole shelf full of PS3's, Xboxs and a couple of Wii's.

This Xbox is being purchased by a relative as a Xmas present for their spouse, for $70. They're getting a 20GB drive, 2 controllers, an HDMI cable, Halo 2 and NFS: Carbon.

Over black Friday I had purchased a newer Xbox 360 Slim 4GB, so I've been using that for gaming and movies.

The other Xbox 360 (non HDMI) I had bought from craigslist (which has been opened at some point) is now the backup unit and still has the "stuck DVD drive" issue, but I've been using that for streaming movies off my home PC, and it's set up in the rec room for the kids. Eventually I'll crack it open and see how it was modded, clean the guts out and install some fan guides or a top heat vent.

[elislider]

a lot of those craigslist guys will replace the drives for you too, for another $50 or something. seems like every 360 ive ever had (maybe 5) has had a sticky dvd drive