Increase In Xbox 360 E74 Problems 346
Xbm360 writes "According to data collected by Joystiq as well as Google Trends, there's been a steady rise in reports and discussion of the so-called E74 error on Xbox 360 consoles since August of last year. The E74 error is related to video problems caused by either a faulty AV connector or, more often, a loosened ANA/HANA scaling chip. This is not the first time the Xbox 360 has experienced technical issues; in recent years many people have complained about scratched discs and over-heating consoles — the 'red ring of death.'"
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.
Of the two, I'd say the 1960 one was the more versatile. It's less likely to break if you do weird stuff with it, while doing the same basic job as the 2009 model.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course an XBox 360 is less stable than, say, a SNES. Of course a 1960 Chevy truck was more sturdy than a 2009 model. It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.
This is the attitude that's killing tech industries the world over.
There's a set of minimums to meet for a product to be fit for purpose. Okay you don't need the sturdy steel chassis of a 1960 Chevy truck to drive around town with occassional longer trips so as the technology has improved and parts could be made lighter and cheaper it made sense to do so. However if as a result the damn thing dies for no reason after a couple of months use, or touching it dents it, you bet people will be complaining.
So if someone's throwing around or stomping on their Xbox 360 and it dies, good and well, they're an idiot. If they're careful with it and it still lasts as long as a $2 item from the junk shop there's a problem.
Why is it in tech we have people rant on about how it's the way of progress and things moving forward that tech becomes useless fragile junk, or the software doesn't work on hardware specified on the box as being minimum, or loses people's data, then wonder why people think we're propeller heads?
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess would be that it's mostly caused by Microsofts relative hardware inexperience. Sony and Nintendo have spent decades building consoles and similar home electronics, but Microsofts prior hardware experience consists of building a bunch of mice and keyboards and using common off the shelf components to build a small computer that they called the X-box, and sold as a console. They grossly underestimated the difficulty and cost of building cutting edge, high quality hardware from scratch, and they keep paying the price for it.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
It's in the nature of things to become more fragile the more versatile they get.
Actually, it's in the nature of /. to consider a random poll on joystiq (which could easily be hijacked by say, ps3 fanboys or MS haters) and unverifiable data from google trends as irrefutable proof of increased E74 errors.
Re:Sony not much better (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, there's a reason they aren't getting much coverage. Maybe because it isn't happening (on a large scale, anyway).
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a common fallacy that versatile means "more fragile", propogated by exactly this sort of poor design and manufacture. Just because you've witnessed it, doesn't mean the opposite (i.e. stable, versatile and modern) isn't possible or available. The problem is that almost EVERYTHING modern is rushed out the door to sell it, especially games consoles - build it cheap, stack it high. "Fix it in firmware" are words that you DO NOT want to hear - it means someone isn't doing their job. Even the ability of upgrading firmware should be rarely used, hard to do and positively discouraged.
It's like the people who say "Well, Vista should crash more, it's newer!". No, it shouldn't - it should be learning by the mistakes of the past few decades and be virtually uncrashable (this is NOT impossible - and yet in two trials of Vista I've crashed machines within literally hours of building them for my workplace without even doing anything "fancy" like installing drivers or applications, or installing new hardware, or using unsupported or broken hardware, etc.). In fact, the exact opposite should be true and it should be more reliable, faster on the same machine, and do more, because it's based on decades-old technology with a new sheen. System requirements should not be going up as quickly as they are (almost damn exponential!) - and now that we're hitting limits (CPU speed, etc.), some OS and programs are showing their limitations and actually getting SLOWER on the top-end hardware because they rely on things just getting faster every year. There was a time when a PC upgrade meant that everything ran faster. Now it merely means that things run.
In terms of software, reliability should be going *up* all the time - the software should be getting fixed more and more as time goes on, not thrown out with each new iteration. You win by making things SIMPLE and reuseable, not complex. The simpler they are, the easier they are to find problems, the less they have to go wrong, the easier they are to fix. That's *software*. Easily updateable, changeable *software*. Hardware should be a million times more solid.
Games consoles are enclosed systems. Their hardware has been fixed to a finite set of components that will not change. Their OS software has a long time in which to be designed and is very basic - load game, run it, everything else should be handled by the application, so it's not like you have to update the DirectX drivers to fix a bug in a shader model or some such crap - the game works or doesn't and it's the game manufactures fault if it doesn't (this is the way it SHOULD work, anyway... I'm not surprised that MS basically try to make the XBox a mini-PC because it's all they know). Console hardware is *static*. Thus it can be tested *much* more extensively for problems than, say, my bodge-job, home-built, cheap-component PC which has been up now for over a year and never crashed or experienced a hardware problem (or, for that matter, needed any significant hardware maintenance in that time - I think I blew the dust off the fans once while it was still running). Or the dozens of servers, dozens of "blackboxes" and hundreds of client machines that I've built along the same lines in recent years. These things can EASILY run for decades, even being knocked about and moved in school environments. The BBC-Micro's that I pulled out of a skip last year from one school I work at were still perfectly operational despite years of heavy use and having been stored with no maintenance and then thrown (literally) into a skip and having building rubble thrown on them - THAT is solid-state hardware of thirty years ago! They were originally bought as a set of 15. There were still 15 there, all working - one of them we still used for flashing EEPROM's! We should have moved FORWARD from that, not BACKWARD.
A computer should be switched on, work should be done, and then it should be switched off. Anything that causes that cycle not to work under reasonable conditions (i.e. not dropped, not placed in a
Re:Sony not much better (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes... Try thinking before you write.
How would me buying the wrong part for my already broken console be the cause of the breakage? As far as I know, psychic powers aren't a documented feature of the Cell processor.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Why is it in tech we have people rant on about how it's the way of progress and things moving forward, that tech becomes useless fragile junk, or the software doesn't work on hardware specified on the box as being minimum, or loses people's data, then wonder why people think we're propeller heads?
>>>
That's an *excellent* question. I popped-in a 5-year-old DVD-R that was *supposed* to be my friend's wedding video, but instead all I got was a bunch of pixelated garbage. Meanwhile my VHS tapes are nearing a quarter-century age, and they still playback just fine. Even the one tape that developed a wrinkle is still watchable and enjoyable. Meanwhile my wedding DVD-R is now a drink coaster. Sad.
I'm an engineer but I'm not like my colleagues. They embrace every new tech that comes along. I ask the question, "Is this new thing better than the old technology?" Sadly the answer is often 'no' which is why I still use pen-and-paper, not an electronic PADD/PDA, and also why I still use a VHS camcorder not one of those DVD-Rs that self-erases itself after five years. ("Obsolescence and stupidity wrapped in the same package. How efficient of you.") I tried to explain that to my brother: Don't buy Vista; buy an XP PC. "But Vista is the newest and bestest!" Now he's unhappy because his Vista machine refuses to play foxnews.com video, and it's pathetically slow, and he wishes he had listened to me.
Technology is only better if it *improves* on old technology, not simply because it's the newest thing.
Re:Heh, figures. (Score:2, Insightful)
Hosestly, I don't know if anyone has actually bothered looking for the real failure rate rather than jumping on the /. Bash Microsoft Bandwagon. What do you suppose it is? /. would probably have you believe it's anywhere upwards of 30 or 40%. If you went to the retailers they'd tell you it's between 15 and 20%. Which is still bloody high, but 1 in 6? I like those odds. Especially when they now have a 3 fucking year warranty. (see I can emphasize phrases with cuss words too!)
Call me a fanboi if you must, I have yet to see a problem. I've bought two Xbox 360 consoles - one original from 2007, the other from 2008. Neither one has ever RROD, crashed, over-heated, read error, scratched disc, or E74'd.
Re:Heh, figures. (Score:3, Insightful)
> Which is still bloody high, but 1 in 6? I like those odds
Things have pretty much changed over the last 30 odd years if people genuinely believe a 1 in 6 failure rate is acceptable.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree it was nice of MS to add to the warranty for the RRoD, I don't have any faith they're standing behind their product. True, they didn't blame the user very loudly (though early on, they were blaming poor ventilation), but they never admitted there was/is a flaw. Now we've another flaw possibly in the making and MS is charactaristically silent.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you're saying it didn't fail because of poor design but because they designed it to be inexpensive to manufacture? That sounds to me like bad design. They didn't design it to stand up to normal use and instead designed it to save a few pennies here and there during the manufacturing and assembly process. Sounds like a classic example of a poorly chosen design trade-off where quality is sacrificed to save costs. Now it is coming back to bite them.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right about VHS tapes. My little sister's prized copy of some Disney movie was eaten by the VCR. I cut out the crushed part of the tape, scotch-taped it back together and it plays perfectly, minus one sentence of dialogue. Now that's reliability.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:4, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that Microsoft sacrificed quality for price and features.
Yep.
Sony appears to have sacrificed price for quality and features. I'll take Sony.
What identifies you as niche buyer. And mass market companies do not care about niche buyers. (Even Sony.)
People see price first - but experience quality only later. That's why it is important to balance the both. If entry price is too high, provided there is competition, many wouldn't bother to even try. But once people bought a console, natural instinct of buyer to protect investments would actually smooth the negative perception of most quality problems.
In other words, in mass market, low quality is forgivable, high price isn't.
P.S. Just recall how Dell improved quality of their PCs. It's not that it improved anything, but they have people standing by with spare replacement parts. Quality is the same usual crap. But if it breaks, they simply replace it - real fast. And perception of Dell's quality really soared in past years.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I think that's an entirely different issue. Take the DVD, for example. The design department doesn't work out all the details of the DVD drive. It's an industry standard component, with an industry standard interface. They design the system to work with a standard DVD drive with certain basic specs, let some other department work out the pricing deals with various suppliers, and then do whatever custom firmware integration they need to with whoever the contract was made with. A lot of it is no more the fault of the design department that it would be if it turned out there was some major flaw in an intel chip used in the system.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
The OP's point was the original Xbox was designed using off the shelf components thus it suffers from fewer defects as MS did not have to design or spec out as much as they did with the 360.
In the red ring of death, failure has been blamed on the graphics chip overheating. MS chose not to use an ASIC vendor to save money and designed the chip and assembly themselves. The chip overheating has been attributed to how it was soldered onto the board using cold solder joints (a design choice). This probably may have been exacerbated by the lack of adequate airflow and the inadequate heat sink size (both design choices). After the initial problems, MS went to an ASIC vendor and redesigned the chip to dissipate less heat. I'd call that a design failure.
As for the scratched discs, the only that MS could have done differently was to watch their suppliers and components more closely.
That might be true if more problems occurred as the Xbox 360 got older but these problems occurred when the Xbox 360 was launched and MS was throwing lots of money into the program. The truth of the matter is that MS cared more about beating Sony out to market with a product than getting out a quality product. There were reports that the failure rate at the the factory was 68%. [gamedaily.com]
The lower point is because they now have to compete with Nintendo. If Sony and MS were the only two competitors, their consoles would still be priced pretty high. However, Nintendo coming in with their cheaper console has changed the market even though Sony and MS don't want to admit they are competing with Nintendo.
I repair video games for a living (Score:5, Insightful)
I repair all generations of video game consoles for a living, and have repaired several thousand consoles. Allow me to touch several bases quickly:
E74 is not "on the rise", it has stayed as steady as ever. 3 red rings of death are declining with the new designs (they were pushing close to 100% failure rate within 3 years for the first generation), so other problems are finally allowed to surface since the consoles actually stay running long enough now.
New generation consoles are ALL going to have MANY more problems than old consoles. It's because of 3 things. They all run hotter since they have behemoth (comparatively) processors. Second, they have TONS more moving parts. Finally, components are smaller and made to less stringent standards (and there are tons more on each board).
The most complicated repair that really ever needs done to cartridge based systems is replacing a fuse. Almost all "broken" systems just need the game connectors cleaned. The processors usually don't even have a heat sink on them because they don't even get warm. The only heat sinks in the things would be on the 7805's. Also, they didn't use custom processors. Older machines had chips like Z80's or 68000's for brains. Obviously established architectures. Then we start adding moving parts, and you actually introduce wear in to the equation where there was no wear before. That was the problem with the NES blinking. The game connector actually had to move around, so it wore out. That's why the SNES and N64 are so much more reliable. They have no moving parts, robust components, and more cooling power than they need. Exactly the opposite of today's designs. New console designs are inherently recipes for disaster. Cheaper components, tons of moving parts, and not enough cooling.
MS could add more cooling. A better fan, or added fans, and a better designed interior for airflow would completely solve the heat issues that kill these things. However, it would require almost completely redesigning case and laying out a new board with different locations of all the parts, both on the board and around the board (meaning even the faceplate, plastic buttons, and drive size would need dealt with). Good luck presenting that to your boss when your product is turning profits just fine right now.
And to anyone saying they never have their disc drives in their computers go bad, try running a program from the CD for EVERY SINGLE SECOND your computer is on, and it probably won't make it to the end of the year. And open and close the drive a dozen times a day.
Re:Stupid Xbots... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow I can't believe you get modded insightful for calling someone a "total fucking loser" while the GP gets modded troll for making a pretty reasonable defense of the 360. Just shows how biased Slashdot is against the 360.
Re:I don't quite see what this is about (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm, you do know what cold solder joints are, don't you? They most certainly are not a design choice. They're a problem of quality control.
I agree with everything you say, otherwise.
Re:And who said (Score:3, Insightful)
The Wii isn't something different and it's not a toyota to MS's Ferrari. For starters in order for the 360 to be a Ferrari it shouldn't die just from looking at it funny and it should host the best selection of games rather than a very narrow selection of games featuring either WWII guys shooting each other in a first person view or homo-erotic space marines shooting each other in a first person view.
MS is losing the multimedia angle too especially with it looking like Netflix may come to the Wii. http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/21/netflix-headed-for-the-wii/ [engadget.com]
The Wii also has better peripheral suport and support for real keyboards by just plugging your existing USB keyboard rather than selling some ugly keyboard thing to attach to your controller.
Then when you look at the arcade version, that's not even a Toyota let alone a Ferrari. Which is also cheaper than the Wii which sort of ruins your joke about the Wii being the cheap option.
As much as Microsoft would like people to think they're in some higher league of gaming than the Wii and that they some how offer something Nintendo can't; they are wrong. Sure they can offer better graphics but at a higher price through actual financial costs and lack of innovation.
The fact is Nintendo's hardware runs like a Ferrari and will last while the 360 is the cheap Yugo option that will fall apart in 6 months.