  The relation between X-ray luminosity and near-infrared luminosity for
early-type galaxies has been examined. Near-infrared (NIR) luminosities should
provide a superior measure of stellar mass compared to optical luminosities
used in previous studies, especially if there is significant star-formation or
dust present in the galaxies. However, we show that the X-ray-NIR relations are
remarkably consistent with the X-ray-optical relations. This indicates that the
large scatter of the relations is dominated by scatter in the X-ray properties
of early-type galaxies, and is consistent with early-types consisting of old,
quiescent stellar populations.
  We have investigated scatter in terms of environment, surface brightness
profile, Mg2, H_beta, H_gamma line strength indices, spectroscopic age, and
nuclear H_alpha emission. We found that galaxies with high Mg2 index, low
H_beta and H_gamma indices or a `core' profile have a large scatter in Lx,
whereas galaxies with low Mg2, high H_beta and H_gamma indices or `power-law'
profiles, generally have Lx<10^41 erg/s. There is no clear trend in the scatter
with environment or nuclear H_alpha emission.
