Tutorial: Fix E74 / No Video Errors Options

[jimwross]

Alright! So roughly six months ago I was ripped off by a guy on Craigslist, I bought a 360 from him got it home to find the E74 errors. I eventually just bought a new one, and was out the cash as I could never find the guy again. I was never able to find legit information on the E74 problem beside the fact that it more then likely dealt with the ANA / HANA chip.

After fixing hundreds of 360's now, I thought I'd post my little solution for the E74 problem.

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What you need:

Stuff to open the 360
Basic X-Clamp replacement stuff (follow the other tutorials on how to do this)
Heat gun
Patience

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Ok so here we go:


My workspace


The E74 Error on the current box


Heres the box with the problems


Case off, remove all of the screws, including the little black ones on the RF unit and for the x-clamps


Unplug the SATA and DVD power cables, unplug the fans


Now we have a good look at the chip cuasing all of the problems. Sits directly above the GPU. It's the video scaler chip aka ANA / HANA chip.


And another photo of it


here's a view from the bottom


And another view


Close up of the ANA chip


Here's my el-cheapo heat gun, you can pick up one in the paint section of lowes or home depot.


Heatgun box


Remove the X-clamp from the GPU, take the bolts out of the heatsink


I like the goo gone gel, it works wonders for taking off the stock heatsink goop. Just make sure to clean the area with rubbing alcohol afterward.


Clean the GPU off


Clean the heatsink off


Use the higher percentage rubbing alcohol


Apply artic silver, do the standard X-Clamp fix.


Now the parts we need exposed (underneath the stock x-clamp) are accessible.


OK, so put your heatgun on a medium setting and start apply heat to the marked areas. KEEP THE GUN MOVING you don't want to burn the parts. This will cuase the solder joints to reball themselves (hopefully). Concentrate on the area linking the GPU and the ANA chip.



The motherboard is going to be HOT. Let it cool down. Put the fans and the fan shroud back in, and test it out.


Woohoo!


Nice.

Now if this doesn't work the first time, don't fret. Keep trying, you may need up the heat on your heat gun or give the board more exposure. After you get the 360 running,

keep the case off for a bit, play a few games and see what happens. Some 360's are worse off then others, and may require you to go through the steps again (if the E74 returns).

[shah87]

Do you know the solution on how to fix the E73 error?

[jimwross]

Do you know the solution on how to fix the E73 error?

This has to do with frying the ethernet chip, usually from people doing the stupid towel trick and overheating components that were not supposed to be hot. You could replace it.

[brandogg]

You should cover any exposed parts that don't need to be heated with aluminum foil (lots of it), such as cylinder capacitors, fan socket, eject and sync buttons, etc. There are already a bunch of heat gun threads on these forums.

[Wilhelm_I]

Nice tutorial I have been kind of doing the same with my E74...
At first I tried to take pressure on the ANA-chip with a stack of cents this didnt work for long so I heatgunned it and since then it works again...
However I must critisize something which just came to my mind, I guess doing the X-Clamp replacement and applying arctic silver before heatgunning it is a bad idea.
Well, why?

Arctic silver is only supposed to be used up to a maximum heat of 120°C which is easily reached if you want to soften the solder(to reflow it you need a 225°C I guess). I am not sure in which way it changes the way the thermal compound operates but I guess it will rather harm than do any good.
As you dont completely reflow anything the X-CLamp replacement should be quite OK but if you do actually really reach the melting point of the leadfree solder, the pressure will push the whole GPU onto the mainboard which would destroy the solder balls and flatten them-> The mainboard would be trash...

Apart from this the tutorial is very detailed and helpful, maybe you can edit this

[brandogg]

Wow, I didn't even notice that. You should never heat gun your board when the heatsink is on the chip, and you should also be heating the underside of the board as well as the GPU itself.

[jimwross]

Ok yeah, I guess it's always just worked for me so I haven't even thought about that!

My reasoning on this was the following:

1) The problem which seems apparent to me is that the connection between the GPU and the ANA chip comes undone cuasing the E74 error.

2) Just as with the X-Clamp fix, the connections themselves seem to appear unneath where the previous X-Clamp was

3) With the re-applied pressure of heatsink on the GPU being pressed down w/ the machine screws it would hopefully hold the parts in place WHILE its being re-heated.

I just have a feeling that its the actually more to do with the GPU's incomplete connection to the ANA chip that cuases the E74; I've noticed after people overheat the GPU or get the 3 RLOD the E74 becomes much more prevelent. In addition to this, I have a hard time buying that the ANA chip gets hot enough to break solder joints (thus proving the penny method is sort of inapplicable), leading me to believe the problem area is that of the connections UNDER where the previous x-clamp was.

I could be totaly off base, just some assumptions I made. Thanks for the input. Brandogg, any ideas on this? I havent had anybody else to bounce stuff off of.

This post has been edited by jimwross: Apr 7 2008, 04:15 PM

[brandogg]

I would venture to say most ANA/HANA problems are caused as you described them, GPU-side. I fixed a no-video error using the heat gun as well, and never went anywhere near the ANA chip on my board with the heat.

[[AD]]

How long do you heat the area up for?

[brandogg]

Not very long. Maybe 1 minute altogether tops - the idea is that you gradually heat up the board, just don't go blasting 1000F right away. First heat the bottom of the board, moving the gun in small circles or waves, slowly getting a little bit closer/warmer, then do the same to the top - first around the GPU, then on the chip itself. You need to keep the system still while you do this - place it on some type of rack or between 2 chairs or something so you can quickly switch between the top and bottom of the board.

[pimpmaul69]

e74 has nothing to do with the ana/hana chip. i have fixed it everytime (100% of the time) by reflowing the gpu.

[Wilhelm_I]

e74 has nothing to do with the ana/hana chip. i have fixed it everytime (100% of the time) by reflowing the gpu.

Well, you got lucky then, in my case it was definitely a pin of the ANA-chip which lost contact because pushing it onto the mainboard made the 360 boot...
When I moved my finger away the screen got weird artifacts over the whole screen and the color changed slightly
And I did not take it under enough pressure to make the GPU balls get contact again(nothing like the penn-fix or so) and I did the X-Clamp replacement like 2 month before which fixed it the first time.
So it might have been the GPU in the first place but it was definitely the ANA-chip when it failed the second time...

This post has been edited by Wilhelm_I: Apr 8 2008, 01:14 PM

[jimwross]

e74 has nothing to do with the ana/hana chip. i have fixed it everytime (100% of the time) by reflowing the gpu.

I think its been pretty well established that the E74 Error has to do with the connection between the ANA / HANA / failure of the Scaler Chip to the GPU

[towerblocks]

Nice tutorial, Anyone know where to get a ANA chip heatsink from?

[jimwross]

Nice tutorial, Anyone know where to get a ANA chip heatsink from?

You'd have to figure out how to attach it too... but I don't think its the ANA chip thats really getting to hot, i'm fairly certain its from the GPU getting really hot and melting the connection between the two...