Slim PSP, homebrew, and the questions that are involved

Teevirus · October 2007

Alright, so I recently got a brand new PSPslim for 160 bucks, with Daxter, a one gig memory stick, a USB cable/charger, and a few episodes of family guy. Buybacks is a sweet store, if anyone has them around.

Anyway, it turns out to get custom firmware on my PSP, I need...another PSP with a pandora battery?

Does anyone know a way around this? I think I can physically turn my slim battery into a pandora battery, but I can't turn it back, so I was wondering if like, Gamestop sold spare batteries?

Assuming I can get all that nonsense figured out, does anyone have any recommendations as far as homebrew? An alarm clock would be killer, to start things off :P

Thanks for the help !

Edit: Also, I bought Pirates! and Monster Hunter Freedom 2, and they're both absolutely brilliant.

Teevirus · October 2007

Replying to my own post because I'm lame.

I just hit up two gamestops and a best buy, no one has a goddamned battery.

And they're wax to buy online. If I get a battery for the PSPfat is it going to fit in my slim?

Renzo · October 2007

Teevirus wrote: »

Replying to my own post because I'm lame.

I just hit up two gamestops and a best buy, no one has a goddamned battery.

And they're wax to buy online. If I get a battery for the PSPfat is it going to fit in my slim?

A PSPfat battery will work in a slim, but it won't allow you to close the battery case.

ArcticMonkey · October 2007

Teevirus wrote: »

Replying to my own post because I'm lame.

I just hit up two gamestops and a best buy, no one has a goddamned battery.

And they're wax to buy online. If I get a battery for the PSPfat is it going to fit in my slim?

It will work but it won't fit the under the battery cover. Sony makes a replacement cover that fits with the slims, but you will have a bulge on it. On the positive side the PSPfat's battery lasts longer. And if you only need the fat battery to make the pandora I guess the cover is not that important. Just make sure it does not slip out when upgrading.

Edit: Beatd. Ill put some homebrew recommendations instead. Bookr is a good text reader with support for pdf files. Excellent for Faqs for my DS games. :P (No HTML support, but the PSPs browser can read those if you open file:/<your file here starting at root>)

KupotheAvenger · October 2007

Another idea is to just pay for a pandora service. I got my PSP done for 10 bucks. saved me 20 bucks and the hassle. Check craigslist and have the person do it in front of you. its takes 10 minutes tops.

halkun · October 2007

The Pandora battery has just been confirmed to work on the Slim, but that just happened today. I'll wait a few weeks first just to make sure there isn't any bricking issues down the line.

Also, when downgrading your PSP on firmware greater than 3.03, you are going to botch your NIDs and be unable to use Sony's official firmware anymore. This isn't a bad thing as the Pandora battery allows for a fresh reload of 1.50, but the Pandora battery has *Just* been confirmed to work with the slims, and I don't know how stable it is.

If I were Sony, I would totally put a service counter in hardware. If the system has been put into service mode (Pandora battery being used) more than three times, I would brick the system requiring a motherboard swap out.

ArcticMonkey · October 2007

halkun wrote: »

The Pandora battery has just been confirmed to work on the Slim, but that just happened today. I'll wait a few weeks first just to make sure there isn't any bricking issues down the line.

Also, when downgrading your PSP on firmware greater than 3.03, you are going to botch your NIDs and be unable to use Sony's official firmware anymore. This isn't a bad thing as the Pandora battery allows for a fresh reload of 1.50, but the Pandora battery has *Just* been confirmed to work with the slims, and I don't know how stable it is.

If I were Sony, I would totally put a service counter in hardware. If the system has been put into service mode (Pandora battery being used) more than three times, I would brick the system requiring a motherboard swap out.

What's a NID? Wikipedia got nothing and google told me people on the internet haw low standards for spelling.

sonictk · October 2007

I think they are IDstorage keys on the PSP used for storing settings that govern wifi and USB hardware. I'm inclined to think it's analogous to a registry on your PC.

Also, when downgrading your PSP on firmware greater than 3.03, you are going to botch your NIDs and be unable to use Sony's official firmware anymore.

There are several ways to fix the IDstorage keys so that you can do this. (Although I would find it weird if anyone wanted to switch back to Sony firmware after going through the trouble of using custom firmware)

The Pandora battery has just been confirmed to work on the Slim, but that just happened today. I'll wait a few weeks first just to make sure there isn't any bricking issues down the line.

http://pspupdates.qj.net/Confirmed-creating-a-PSP-slim-Pandora-s-battery-possible/pg/49/aid/106137
Incidentally, any homebrew/downgrading/firmware issues can usually be solved within a few minutes of going through PSPUpdates. They're one of the more "legal" PSP development sites around.

Teevirus · October 2007

Hmm. I ended up just buying a toolkit battery from codejunkies. Gotta wait five days for it to get here, but I've got -mad- monsters to hunt in the meantime.

Thanks for the links, as well. If I do end up bricking my PSP, can it be...unbricked? (Is that what the pandora battery allowing a clean 1.50 install would do for me?)

sonictk · October 2007

Thanks for the links, as well. If I do end up bricking my PSP, can it be...unbricked? (Is that what the pandora battery allowing a clean 1.50 install would do for me?)

If your flash0 is corrupted, for a PSP Slim, I should think a Pandora battery would be able to unbrick it (that's the whole point behind these service modes), but I'm not sure, so many reports of this and that here and there. If it's just the flash1 of your ROM though then you can unbrick it provided you're already running custom firmware.

Teevirus · October 2007

That's what's up, if I do end up fucking it up, I'm sure I'll get my whine on and ask the same question again

As nerdy as I am, and as badly as I want to be able to get this homebrew nonsense taken care of, everything should be fine.

Wish it was as easy as it is with DS, though.

Shooter Mcgavin · December 2007

Resurrecting an old thread. I just got the Daxter bundle as well, and I was toying with the idea of homebrew. As far as topics that are allowed on this board, what would homebrew provide me that I can't already get on the standard firmware?

I don't need to do this right away, and I'm sure I can't since I just upgraded to the 3.80 firmware. I'm just curious about homebrew, and the benefits it provides.

yalborap · December 2007

Shooter Mcgavin wrote: »

Resurrecting an old thread. I just got the Daxter bundle as well, and I was toying with the idea of homebrew. As far as topics that are allowed on this board, what would homebrew provide me that I can't already get on the standard firmware?

I don't need to do this right away, and I'm sure I can't since I just upgraded to the 3.80 firmware. I'm just curious about homebrew, and the benefits it provides.

Homebrew games and applications, mainly. Text-readers, ports of classic game engines(scummvm, a DOOM engine port, etc.), net-radio playing rigs, etc. etc. etc.

ChewyWaffles · December 2007

I run a PDF/text reader on mine. Really great and runs the CPU on lower speeds than normal which greatly increases battery life.

Shooter Mcgavin · December 2007

Once you've jumped through the hoops to get custom firmware on the system, how hard is it to upgrade to newer custom firmwares? One of the main things preventing me from getting real excited about homebrew is the amount of time spent on getting it to work and maintaining it. I don't have a whole lot of interest in classic games, my main point of interest would probably be in running a better media player (organize music by albums, artist, etc), support for more video codecs, and a few apps like a pocket organizer and a money app. Stuff like that.

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