OK everyone This is my first tutorial on Fixing E74 or first tutorial at all for that matter. I have been testing different, different fix's for the common E74 error for the last few months here since I have about 10 Box's with it to fix. I have now come to the most reliable fix to it so far, without buying any additional hardware such as the hybrid fix or better fans. So I thought I would share with you guys. When this procedure was applied to 4 test box's they have had a 100% success rate so far. Now it has almost been 4 months and all box's are going strong. Reason for Tut: every E74 Tut that was worth the time required me to have a Griddle or a rework station and I don't think its worth buying those things to fix a few x box's. Overview: What we will be doing here is really just a combo of the E74 fix's with my spin on things and an added procedure. I'm not going to go to in depth with the Xclamp replacement part because there is already a pretty good selection of tutorials to choose from on that topic I am going to be more focusing on after the Xbox has had those removed Items needed: 99% rubbing alcohol (Hard to find) Thermal paste (I use MX-20) I have used AS5 but have had better results with MX-20. Flux pen or bottle of flux. ONLY NO CLEAN FLUX! X-clamp materials. (screws and/or bolts and washers) Heat Gun Capable of 450 Degrees Fahrenheit Extra wire (Cat5 cable works) Common tools such as Philips, Torxe's, Wire strippers, Q-tips and pliers. 8 M5-.80 x 10 Machine Screws #138433 16 #10 Flat Washers – Nylon #139065 16 5mm Flat Washers – Metal #138319 An Ice cappuccino helps to but not required. Begin: *remember to keep ESD (electro-static discharge) safe from the board in mind, ONLY WORK ON ESD SAFE MATERIALS e.g. Cotton were going to skip a few steps that everyone already knows, Open the Xbox. Now if you need help with this step, there are tons of tutorials on youtube that can show you how to do that. Its fairly easy and can be done in a minute or two. Next we are going take off the Xclamps and clean off all that thermal compound we have on our CPU and GPU. Your Board should look something like this. Now that it is all clean we are going to start adding flux under Both the GPU and HANA Chip.(I'm excluding the ANA chip because E74 on a ANA chip is very rare and it is most likely your GPU if its a Xenon board). This is the flux I will be using. Squirt it right under the HANA and GPU and try to get the most liquid you can underneath the two components as evenly as possible, turn the board on different angles to let gravity do its work. After you have the solder underneath nice and wet, don't waste anytime. Start preheating you board. Here is a picture of my Heat gun and Board as is. Now place your board on something that ESD safe and start warming it up. with the heat gun. This is what I have chosen for a working station. I have my Board raised from any surface I dont want to damage and sitting on a cardboard box, Cardboard is pretty ESD safe so I am pretty sure im not going to damage any of the small components. Start warming the board with a lower temp around 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Do this for a couple of minutes getting the whole board up to a decent temperature. Make sure not to sit Idle for to long though. After those few minutes switch your temperature to something around the 450 mark, we are going to start to re flow the HANA mostly but also get the GPU warm, reason being those two are very well inter connected and it could be a solder point between the two that is causing you to have E74. Remember the to keep the Heat gun in motion it will damage the board to keep it idle, do this for about 2-3 minutes. Now let the board cool for about 10 minutes our so. Go ahead and start putting your Xclamps back on with thermal paste and everything like you normally would but after you get the Heat sinks back on stop cause we are going to be changing a few more things. we are going to be borrowing the thermal pads off of the RAM chips to be used in a different situation here. If you don't know what the thermal pads are here is a pic. this is really how we are going to stop the E-74 from ever coming back. I want you to take those pads and arrange them on the board like I have here. reason for this is that the heat sink on the GPU is way to small for the amount of heat that the unit dissipates, causing the huge amount of heat build up to be blown right over one of the most sensitive components on the board to get sprayed by this heat continuously by the fan. Here is a Diagram of what is a happening when the Xbox is on and running at full temperature. Now that we have our HANA chip protected from the constant heat of the GPU, we are going to make sure that the HANA stays well connected with the board. Most common trick for this is the penny method. There is a bunch of tutorials out on the web right now that tell you how to do this but basically its just 8 penny's wrapped with electrical tape. Then placed on top of the Thermal pad, that is on top of the HANA. Should look like this now. Now we are going to jack up the Cool by giving the fans a full 12Volts all of the time, this can be done by simply taking a connection from the DVD drive and adding the power to fan. This is a diagram of the power source on the DVD drive. Use the 12V as your power. There is no need to use the Ground, There is a ground in the Fan connections already so just tap into that the 12v and and use it as additional power. You want to connect the 12V to the Red wire on the fan assembly. It should look something like this now. Now connect everything back up and you should be good to go. Remember your Xbox will be much louder now but will live for a decent length of time. Hope you got something out of this. Remember to +rep for the Help. If there is anything That I need to add or change please inform me. I also want to Report that 1 of the 4 Has just crapped out again about 4 and half months later. Quote looks like a good tut...there where a few things i was thinking that could make it a little better though...maybe have a list of where to get each supply? like home depot or w.e. also in the first couple of pics maybe circle which chips you are talking about...and also when you say extra wire some ppl might not know what a cat5 wire is...maybe say get a from an ethernet cable? other than that it looks like a pretty well explained tut...+ rep for just taking the time to write all that up and take pics edit: also here is a parts list i used for Lowes....i just printed that out and went to Lowes and showed the guy the list and he went and got it all for me...also Best "known" haha a) 8 M5-.80 x 10 Machine Screws #138433 B) 16 #10 Flat Washers – Nylon #139065 c) 16 5mm Flat Washers – Metal #138319 [/quote] Originally posted on xpgamesaves by James.
