When has the Hitachi v79 Been released?

[McBeth]

First of all, hi everyone, I'm McBeth

Here's the situation: After having read tons of tutorials I kinda felt I knew at least the basics to get myself going.

WRONG

I got a 360 premium today and now I discover there's the v79 drive that can be flashed using the PassKey device only.

he box i have is still sealed and I have only a couple of days time to return it to the vendor!

Basically what I need to know is:

By the time my 360 has been manufactured:



Had the v79 (or any other drive that cannot be flashed without the use of special HW) been released already? Can the f***er be in my box? Or is it a newer drive?

I know I could just get the PassKey but I'm supershort on money.

Thanx

EDIT

The database http://www.360drives.com/ displays 5 v79 drives around my manufacture date. However, most of those entries have a note saying that the console has been sent to microsoft for service and was returned with the new drive.Meaning the manufacture date doesn't necessairily match the drive's date.

Any official data?

[sadalius]

Welcome to Robinhoods Playground McBeth,

That was about the time that the v79 was introduced. Although they weren't very numerous at that time. It was around September-October that they started showing larger numbers. It is possible that since it's used, the unit may have been returned for warranty work through Microsoft and the original drive could have been replaced with the v79 drive. Unfortunately, unless there is a date on the drive itself that shows that it's newer than the console MFGR date, there isn't any way to tell if thats the original drive that came in the unit. There currently isn't any other way to flash a v79 without a passkey, so your options would be two fold. 1. Purchase a passkey. 2. Being supershort on cash, it would be more logical to return the unit and exchange it for another that either has an earlier MFGR date or a later one. It's a chance that your taking that you might end up with another v79 though. Ultimately, the decision is yours to make on which path to take.

This is the only drive to date that requires a HW mod to be able to flash the drive. All the rest, v78 and lower, Samsungs and Benq's are software flash-able.

Hope this info helps you some and enjoy your visit here!

[McBeth]

OK, thank you very much.

Just 2 more things. Yes, I know I'm squeezing the last drop of juice out of it, forgive me.

1. After checking and rechecking that list I posted the link to above, I've noticed that all entries that correspond to my LOT/TEAM either have a Samsung drive, or an Hitachi 59DL/DJ. The Hitachis are especially in UK/Finnland/Sweden.

The lots before mine have samsungs, those after mine have the Hitachi 78 for quiet a long while.

It's a little light for me at the end of this tunnel

2. Is there any way to see whether the box has been opened yet or not? Checking the seal it looks perfect and not like there used to be another seal before.I know it's far fetched, but does anyone have experience with "re-sealed" boxes?

[CoFree]

you can replace a seal and you would not know.
the consoles that i have seen come back from M$ you would not beable to tell if they had went in it or not

[sadalius]

As for number 1, I don't know what you asking, seemed more like a statement. But yes, most 360's in that time frame were samsungs or hitachi 78's or lower. There were a scant few 79's though and it is still possible for this 360 to have had one from the start when you look at how production lines work. At the point this particular 360 came through, or maybe a few before, the line ran out of drives, had other drives in stock, but workers being lazy/in a hurry, grabbed a case or two of a fresh delivery of 79's instead of finishing off the stock of other drives first or something to that affect. And it is possible that this was a replacement drive just the same. From what I've seen on the warranty stickers, when a 360 gets sent back in for warranty work, it comes back with either a regular warranty sticker, or the same sticker with what looks like markings from a permanent marker, a dot on each side of the word microsoft, or a date. It is also possible to remove this sticker without damaging it. So a regular person that knew what they were doing could swap the drive out, but it being a 79 is highly unlikely as they would have to have used a willem programmer or a 79 passkey to be able to read/write to the flash chip on the drive. I'm afraid your probably trying to beat a dead horse when it comes to finding out whether this was original to your 360 or if it was a replacement drive. But given the date, I would almost venture to say replacement drive. Does the drive itself have a manufacture date? I've never looked for one on any of the drives that I've worked with, so I can't honestly say whether they have one printed on the label or not.

[McBeth]

Thanks a lot guys, but this is not gonna be a problem anymore.

No, no, I haven't returned it.

And no, I don't know which drive I got in there.

What I do know is as follows:

I rented a game...Assassin's creed
I started it

360 : "need to update your fw, or you can't play, k?"
me: "oh fo sho!"

pluff

360 switches off

I restart

E_74

EDIT

I forgot to mention: I never played ANYTHING on this 360 before. Except for some mp3 that were on the hdd already

[sadalius]

if your saying you get error 74 when you start your 360, thats an error related to the AV cable. Check the connections on the cable where it connects to the 360. If the cable looks connected good, try unplugging the cable and plugging it back in. Maybe even try a different cable. If it's not the cable, it could be the connector that it plugs into or the connectors loose on the motherboard, and there could be a couple of other reasons for this, but it would require repair work if thats the case.

[McBeth]

Yeah, getting the e 74 message

did what was suggested on xbox.com as well as what you kindly posted, no go

Heck I sound like the noobs over at c-ex..infact I'm a 360 noob

("oRLY, McBeth? We would have NEVER noticed" :p )

[sadalius]

Well, if you've already tried a different AV cable, and it still give e-74, there are only two other possibilities. Either the graphics scaler, commonly called the "ana" chip or the GPU (Graphics Processor) has gone bad. This would require repair work to fix. If you have time to return the console and exchange it, thats what I would do. Sorry that it's not an easy fix.

[McBeth]

well, skimming through the warranty booklet I found out MS restricts warranty to the very first owner (= the first one who actually registred the 360)

According to their warranty policy, this does NOT apply to rrod.

Meaning anybody can have that one fixed.

So now what was to be my next-gen gaming start, has become a nightmare, as I might be forced to try and get a rrod.

Any Idea on that matter? Like overheating using towels or anything?

[CoFree]

if the warr sticker is brork or messed up they wont warr it.

if the warr sticker is good.
then yea that should do it.
fold a towel over and lay it on it makeing sure to cover all the vent holes and let it run till it rrod.
i myself would not do this.
but it up to you

you may have to do it more than one time before it would always be rrod at start up.

[McBeth]

lol I already tried the towel trick twice
the rrod auto-fixes itself after letting it cool down. I will have to try harder.

The warranty sticker is on by coincidence.

If it wasn't for the drive being a possible v79, I would have opened it, performed the xclamp fix, flashed the drive

No use in complaining now.

What'S next:

1. I'll try and see if I can get it repaired. If so, I will probably get a v79 anyway, so as far as flashing is concerned, I'm f-d anyway, unless maximus comes up with some magic


2. If not, I try and fix it myself with those cheap ghetto tricks of applying preassure on the ana, as well as performing the xclamp fix, you never know....might be one of the rare cases you mentioned in which the GPU is the weak part...

3.I try and sell it over ebay, of course admitting it's broken.....

4. Finally, return to being the good old console-exploits McBeth that didn't care about any other console than PS2s -and possibly PS3s should they ever get...errr..."special features"

EDIT

'Cor Blimey, I almost forgot:
Thank you guys for your support. As this isn't over yet, I might pop in again soon and it feels good to have ppl you can ask whatever

[CoFree]

you can heat that warr sticker up with a blow dryer and it will come lose with out messing it up.you have to go slow then you could get a look at the top of the dvd case and know for sure what drive you have.

[McBeth]

Mhm, some minor update.

The last towel trick I performed (waited 20 mins this time) got me up and running

The thing is asked me for an update dvd (obviously the one I was using to update when this crap happened)

After letting it cool down for 20 mins, I got e74 again


Am I right if I say that the problem is more likely to be on GPU side?

Consider I didnt have any distorted picture whatsoever. None of the youtubed pre-announcements of a dying ana (crappy picture, pixel errors, etc) have made their way onto my screen.

[sadalius]

From the sounds of it, yeah. But it could still be the ana chip. Just depends on what the problem actually is really.