diff --git a/modules/@angular/http/src/backends/xhr_backend.ts b/modules/@angular/http/src/backends/xhr_backend.ts
index 416cf552b3..90d4f32912 100644
--- a/modules/@angular/http/src/backends/xhr_backend.ts
+++ b/modules/@angular/http/src/backends/xhr_backend.ts
@@ -54,9 +54,8 @@ export class XHRConnection implements Connection {
       let onLoad = () => {
         // responseText is the old-school way of retrieving response (supported by IE8 & 9)
         // response/responseType properties were introduced in ResourceLoader Level2 spec (supported
-        // by
-        // IE10)
-        let body = isPresent(_xhr.response) ? _xhr.response : _xhr.responseText;
+        // by IE10)
+        let body = _xhr.response === undefined ? _xhr.responseText : _xhr.response;
         // Implicitly strip a potential XSSI prefix.
         if (isString(body)) body = body.replace(XSSI_PREFIX, '');
         let headers = Headers.fromResponseHeaderString(_xhr.getAllResponseHeaders());
diff --git a/modules/@angular/http/test/backends/xhr_backend_spec.ts b/modules/@angular/http/test/backends/xhr_backend_spec.ts
index 78cb2bec60..0b74c4b14a 100644
--- a/modules/@angular/http/test/backends/xhr_backend_spec.ts
+++ b/modules/@angular/http/test/backends/xhr_backend_spec.ts
@@ -686,6 +686,23 @@ Connection: keep-alive`;
            existingXHRs[0].setStatusCode(statusCode);
            existingXHRs[0].dispatchEvent('load');
          }));
+
+      it('should not throw invalidStateError if response without body and responseType not equal to text',
+         inject([AsyncTestCompleter], (async: AsyncTestCompleter) => {
+           const base = new BaseRequestOptions();
+           const connection = new XHRConnection(
+               new Request(
+                   base.merge(new RequestOptions({responseType: ResponseContentType.Json}))),
+               new MockBrowserXHR());
+
+           connection.response.subscribe((res: Response) => {
+             expect(res.json()).toBe(null);
+             async.done();
+           });
+
+           existingXHRs[0].setStatusCode(204);
+           existingXHRs[0].dispatchEvent('load');
+         }));
     });
   });
 }