E74 With 1 Ring

I have been getting an E74 problem for the past month and a half or so. I had been getting around it at first by using the towel trick, then i realized after the 2nd time this would eventually fry my system most likely. I moved onto the Qtip trick (Put a qtip in each of the fans path in the back of the xbox to allow overheating) Which is quicker and probably a lot less damaging. But I need to know is there a formal fix for an E74 with 1 RRoD? Also it's like a 5 or 6 year old xbox, so don't tell me to send it into microsoft, besides warranty sticker is gone.

il buy the drive and the case