360: Green screen, yellow vertical lines?

MHYoshimitzu

Hi folks,

I have an Xbox 360 I purchased in October 2006, so a launch or close-to-launch box. I've started seeing a green screen and yellow vertical lines when I am playing games. It completely locks up the system: I cannot reach the dashboard and only a hard reset fixes the problem.

At first, it happened when I started playing Gears 3. I had played for ~2 hours, and the problem happened out of nowhere. There was no sign of lag or any indication that it was about to fail. Afterward, I immediately turned the console off and then on again and got the screen after a few minutes of playing.

Chalking it up to just the game, I let the console sit for a few days and then began playing a different game, GTAIV. Sure enough, about an hour in I got this same screen. And, once again, I got the same screen after a few minutes of playing after resetting the console.

I researched this problem and an old forum post on another website links it to the E74 error, but it's not displaying any of the same symptoms of the error. I can still browse the dashboard without issue, so far the problem is only in game.

Has anyone encountered this problem before? Am I in the "early stages" of an E74 error? I am out of warranty, so the only solution then would be to either open the console to fix it myself or buy a brand new one.

Thanks for anyone who can shed some light on this.

tsmvengy

Seems like heat to me if it takes an hour to show up, but comes up much faster after you reset the console.

MHYoshimitzu

This console has had heating problems in the past, but only in the summer in a room with no air conditioning.

My counter to that, though, would be that it's in a finished basement, on top of several IKEA storage boxes. The basement is always slightly higher than the temperature outside and the boxes would probably rule out water damage/critters. It's also not hot to the touch like it was when it was overheating; in the past, the overheating box almost burned your skin when you touched it.

maximumzero

MHYoshimitzu wrote:

This console has had heating problems in the past, but only in the summer in a room with no air conditioning.

My counter to that, though, would be that it's in a finished basement, on top of several IKEA storage boxes. The basement is always slightly higher than the temperature outside and the boxes would probably rule out water damage/critters. It's also not hot to the touch like it was when it was overheating; in the past, the overheating box almost burned your skin when you touched it.

Punch your serial # in on Microsoft's support site and see what your options are. On older machines you're typically covered for your first repair, if not, see what the repair cost is, it's likely cheaper than buying a new system, unless you're really looking for an excuse to get one of the Slim models.

MHYoshimitzu

I'll do that when I get home just to see what my options are.

Getting a new slim is not out of the question, the only unit sounds like a jet engine when you turn it on. Still worked fine, though, until a couple weeks ago.

Just in case I decide to go that route, I have an old transfer cable somewhere from when I bought the 120 GB HDD. Is it as easy as saving the drive and transferring the data to the new system?

maximumzero

MHYoshimitzu wrote:

I'll do that when I get home just to see what my options are.

Getting a new slim is not out of the question, the only unit sounds like a jet engine when you turn it on. Still worked fine, though, until a couple weeks ago.

Just in case I decide to go that route, I have an old transfer cable somewhere from when I bought the 120 GB HDD. Is it as easy as saving the drive and transferring the data to the new system?

Should be able to use the same transfer cable without problem.

Alternatively if you want to buy the 4GB 360, you can actually buy a kit to remove your 120GB drive from it's caddy and plop that into your new 360, but that's entirely up to you.

I can link you if that's something you're interested in.

MHYoshimitzu

That actually sounds like it'd save me a good deal of money. No doubt there will be BF sales abound on 4 GB 360s, I could take advantage of that.

maximumzero

MHYoshimitzu wrote:

That actually sounds like it'd save me a good deal of money. No doubt there will be BF sales abound on 4 GB 360s, I could take advantage of that.

Well, here's the empty HDD case you can purchase. This fits in the new Slim units and mirrors what Microsoft themselves sells separately.

If you don't have a TORX screwdriver and set of bits, you'll need one of those, specially Torx #6 and #10. Here's an inexpensive one that'll serve your purposes perfectly.

Finally, here's a quickie tutorial on getting the old HDD out of its casing.

I haven't done this myself but I posted these exactly links to a cousin of mine that was making a similar move that you are and he said everything went swimmingly.

MHYoshimitzu

That's awesome! Thanks a lot. I'll let you know how it goes when I finally update.

maximumzero

MHYoshimitzu wrote:

That's awesome! Thanks a lot. I'll let you know how it goes when I finally update.

Sweet, and you're right, there's bound to be some great Black Friday deals coming down the pipe soon.