The latest episode of PSP Hacking 101 is something that might really be useful for a lot of PSP owners. Why is that? After the release of the The Noobz's 3.03 Downgrader, the PSP Hacking 101 folks decided to focus its latest episode on how to downgrade your beloved PSP from 3.03 to 1.5. Now, things couldn't get easier for all of you guys whose palms get sweaty with just the thought of downgrading.

Anyhow, they were nice enough to dish out a YouTube video so as you guys won't have to go through the hassle of downloading and waiting. The video is about seven minutes long, but it is packed with all the help you need for you to be able to enjoy PSP homebrew goodness. We also provided you with the download links to the stuff you'll use to downgrade - the Noobz's 3.03 to 1.50 downgrader, the 1.50 Update, and the 3.03 Update. So without further ado, we give you PSP Hacking 101, Episode 22 - the 3.03 Downgrader.

Download: [Noobz 3.03 to 1.50 downgrader]
Download: [1.50 Update]
Download: [3.03 Update]

Quake's media manager is up with a new version. Extreme Link is now on v1.4.1a, and the announcement of its release coincides with some upcoming additions to the program.

Quake mentions that Extreme Link will be picking up a new feature, called the PNG imager. He writes, "What it will do is create PNG images for the DocMaker's images. You can open text files (GUIDES) and create the PNG images quick and simple."

As for the changes in this version, we've got them below. Before downloading, remember that Extreme Link v1.4.1a is meant to run on 1.5 firmwares so downgrade accordingly. If you think you have some missing files, the source link also offers those for you to download. Just remember to check the readme after you install the application to lessen the chances of harming your handheld, alright? Enjoy!

Changes for Extreme Link v1.4.1a:

• Fixed Removal of Next Line in WordWrap on PNG Imager.
• Added PSP Explore Favorites. - Includes Add, Edit and Delete
• Added USB NET Favorites. - Includes Add, Edit and Delete

Download: [Extreme Link v1.4.1a]

Fanjita may have told you guys what to do with a non-homebrew capable PSP, but now it appears that everyone can get in on the homebrew fun! The "goofy exploit" which exists in firmwares 2.00 to 3.03 was found on Friday, January 25, 2007, a date which you'd think might go down in the PSP homebrew history. But it probably won't because despite their seven-day ETA, the Noobz team has once again fortified its position at the top of the homebrew coding ladder with a 3.03 downgrader - just three days after the exploit was found!

Some call it magic, others call it an act of god, but whatever the reason for it, PSP gamers all across the world can now downgrade their consoles to the magic of homebrew-capable 1.5, and then if they wish to do so, upgrading to homebrew-capable custom firmware. All you need is a PSP running firmware 3.03 (if not then update to 3.03 using the update EBOOT found here) the downgrader files and the 1.50 EBOOT as well as an unpatched version of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.

Unpatched versions of Liberty City Stories contain the 2.0 update, whereas patched versions contain higher updates. If your copy of LCS has an update higher than 2.0 on it, then you will have to find an unpatched UMD to proceed. There's no need to worry if you have a TA-082 PSP as the downgrader will check your motherboard and patch it if necessary. Note the downgrader will not let you proceed without patching if your motherboard requires it.

Not only has Noobz released a 3.03 downgrader but they've also managed to release a 3.03 HEN (Homebrew Enabler) for the PSP. This means that those of you who aren't too sure that you want to downgrade can still play homebrew on 3.03. This does not flash your PSP, but by running HEN, it installs a patch in your PSP's memory, that allows you to run homebrew almost as if you had a v1.5 PSP. This patch remains in place until you fully turn off your PSP - it will survive the PSP being placed into sleep mode. You run the HEN application just as you do the downgrader using Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.

To use this simply download the 3.03 HEN files from the download links below and copy them to your PSP. Then run your unpatched version of GTA:LCS and the patch will apply itself. It will be stored in RAM and will stay there until you reset your PSP. Putting the PSP in sleep mode will not remove the patch. This is based on the source for HEN 2.71 provided by Dark_Alex, so the Noobz team would like to thank him for the code and the help. Additional credits go to Booster, Team C + D for the registry kernel exploit and Mathieulh for the help provided to Dark_AleX.

PLEASE READ: This downgrader has been tested by the highly-successful Noobz team and has been proven to work, however there is a small chance that bricking could occur during the process of downgrading. QJ.Net and the Noobz team are not responsible for any damage which may happen to your PSP by this application. Can you also note before use that it is possible to brick using this downgrader if you downgrade and then update to 3.03 and then downgrade again. The advice from Fanjita right now is to only use this once. If you update to 3.03 again after using the downgrader then we suggest you leave it there to prevent your PSP from bricking.

Now we've got the boring bit over with, we can move onto the downgrade process itself. Here's QJ's "how to" for downgrading from 3.03 to 1.50:

1. Update to firmware 3.03. If already have this firmware then proceed to step 2.

2. Open the 3.03 downgrade file and copy the contents of the folder MS_ROOT to the root of your memory stick.

3. Open the 1.5 update and rename the EBOOT.PBP to UPDATE.PBP then copy it to /PSP/GAME/UPDATE/
Make sure not to overwrite PSP/GAME/UPDATE/EBOOT.PBP

4. Load Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (unpatched)

5. It should get to loading save game, clear the screen, the screen should fill with a light blue color and then reset the PSP
(If this does not happen see below)

6. Check that HEN is running by going to system settings then System Information and it should show up as system version 303 HEN

7. If it is showing up as 3.03 HEN then go to the memory stick and run the x.yz update

8. Before the downgrader does anything to your PSP it will ask for you to agree to what it is doing
If you no longer want to continue press the Right Shoulder Button (R-TRIGGER).

9. Once you have agreed to start the downgrade do not unplug the PSP

10. Once finished the PSP will ask you to press X, after pressing it will reset it self.

11. If it comes up saying that the settings are corrupt press X to continue.

12. Enjoy your new shiny 1.5 PSP.

What do you do once you have firmware 1.5? Well, you can either start downloading homebrew games from our QuickJump Downloads site and use DevHook to run your current homebrew games or use the more popular which is to upgrade to Dark_Alex's 3.03 OE-C Custom firmware. The friendly people over at our forums have even created an easy-to-follow installation guide for 3.03 OE-C if you've never used custom firmware before. This will give you all the features of 3.03 and the ability to play homebrew and PSX games too! It doesn't get much better than this. [Updated Video of the downgrade process after the jump, thanks to demologik]

Download: [Noobz 3.03 Homebrew Enabler (HEN)]
Download: [Noobz 3.03 to 1.50 downgrader]
Download: [1.50 Update]
Discuss: [Official Downgrader Forums]
Read: [Official Downgrader FAQ]

Writing about homebrew for the past few months have taught me a lot of things, one of them is this - "When Fanjita talks, you should listen". Recently, the legendary homebrew developer answered this question "What should I do with my non-homebrew PSP?". He mentions that they had been getting a lot of questions that goes like these:

• When will there be a 2.81 downgrader?
• Should I sell my 3.03 PSP and buy a 1.5?
• Should I upgrade my 2.81 to 3.03?

Now, Fanjita mentions that he hopes that his article would be able to answer those questions. A good way of reaching an answer is setting the facts straight. So with that, he mentioned the facts in this particular scenario. Again, here is Fanjita's word-per-word statements:

• It looks like the Team C+D kernel mode exploit will work all the way up to v3.03 - the relevant code seems to be unchanged.
• It's very likely that Sony will patch that exploit in the next firmware.
• As soon as a user-mode exploit is found for 2.81-3.03, it should be possible to get homebrew running on those firmwares.
• It looks like the current 2.80 downgrader will probably work on v3.03, once we can run homebrew on that firmware.
• Dark_AleX's OE firmwares are the best platform for homebrew users, and it seems likely that it will be possible to keep updating OE for the latest firmwares shortly after they are released.
• It has historically always been easier to downgrade lower firmwares.

Now that he straightened out the facts, What could these mean for those people who are stuck with their 2.81-3.03 FW PSP? Fanjita says that things are more hopeful for them now and that he and his team are only one step away from being able to downgrade your PSP so as you could use the OE firmwares. A downgrader will come, he continues, but no one (not even Fanjita himself) could accurately predict when that might be.

He also mentions that upgrading to the next Sony PSP firmware release would be homebrew suicide, so if you wanna join in all those homebrew fun that we're enjoying, better ignore the next firmware update. And finally, upgrading your firmware from FW 2.81 to FW3.00 isn't a great move as you might delay your choice to downgrade when a downgrader finally comes.

Lastly, he mentions that if you have some spare cash but your patience is running out, then it would be best to buy a downgradeable PSP. Price difference isn't very large these days so it might be worth it.

But at the end of the day, hope is not lost for people stuck with higher firmwares. You could always have some fun with some PSP flash games, portals, TIFF games and apps and even game demos. For now, just be patient. Fanjita and the Noobz development team are working very hard for you guys to experience some homebrew fun.

Tsk, tsk.

It seems that it's not just the devotees of the PSP homebrew community">homebrew community">homebrew community who are benefiting from the hard work of devs like Dark_AleX and his friends; it looks like some entrepreneurs are also cutting in on the action.

As proof, one of our readers, Lord Pleb, gave us the heads up about this rather awkward auction that he spotted over at eBay which promises to have your PSP downgraded in five minutes. The seller won't actually do the downgrading for you, but rather, he's compiled the applications and files that you need to downgrade your PSP yourself.

OK guys, here's the deal. I've been asking around people, trying to confirm whether the downgrader actually works or not. And while there may be a few bricks, it seems that the downgrader does work well IF you get everything right. After the barrage of bricks, there were still a lot of brave souls who were willing to test it.

The results are in, and while we don't have the exact number of bricks or successes, we'd like to advise you to stay away from it if you don't know what you're doing. The major problem seems to be that in the hurry of releasing the downgrader, 0okm failed to put any checks in the downgrader. In simple words, this means that the downgrader won't tell you if you're missing a file, nor will it tell you if you've placed them in the wrong place.

People who've successfully downgraded have either been incredibly lucky, or really good with firmware dumps. So yes, while the downgrader does work, the dangers far outweigh the advantages at this point. The good thing, like I said before, is that this type of downgrader will not only allow you to share dumps between friends, but also that applications like Easy Downgrader will make it much more fool proof than it is right now.

Until then, what we're gonna do is report this as news, but not give out the files on our servers. It's just too dangerous at this point, and I'm sure you can understand our concerns about you, our readers. You can get the file off 0okm's site and read the instructions properly and do it if you can.

You can also check out our forums for unofficial guides by our members, but we won't give out instructions at this point. So until a better version is released, we'd advise everyone to wait it out. Apologies for any confusion caused, and we hope that you can understand our concerns.

---

Update: Remember the previous version of this article - when we said Fanjita was testing this? Here's the result. It worked for Fanjita.

M_Roc has just released an update to his app in the form of ThemePSP v2, so those of you who have been wanting to give your PSP a facelift might want to give this little 'brew a try. According to the maker of this app, here are the following changes in this version:

• New much nicer GUI!
• Options screen now added! You can now completle choose if you just want to install eg. the font and the BG of a theme
• Can install Themes for DevHook FW 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 26 and 2.71 ( the program can't install custom menu names for fw 2.xx due to a diffrent standard between the fw's))
• If you try to intall a theme 4 times in a row the program will automaticlly quit instead of freeze (the freezeing was caused by an unknown bug)
• Updated ThemePSP Creator Pack with the correct image resolution (300x170 pxl)
• added a "PS3" theme for use and fun
  

This application basically allows the user to customize the theme of his or her PSP without having to know all that C script. M_Roc notes that this app is suitable for beginners as you only have to follow the directions that are provided in order to get the look that you want. However, there ARE several warnings which you would need to be acquainted with first...

• This does only work on 1.5 PSP's.
• If you have downgraded form 2.5/2.6 I recommend you to update to 2.0 and then downgrade or version spoof your psp to fw 1.0 and re-install the official Sony Update.

In the meantime, go ahead and download ThemePSP v2 right here, as well as the PS3 theme which you guys can try out.

Thanks to M_Roc for keeping us posted! Do let us know when you've got a new one!

Download: [ThemePSP v2]
Download: [ThemePSP PS3 theme]

These days, Dark_AleX has made it a habit of making big news at least once every week. And might we add, a great habit at that. Just yesterday, he released a generic downgrader which made it a piece of cake to anyone who wanted to downgrade. But in case anyone looked harder, you would've noticed that the file was named updateflasher.zip/rar.

We're sure many people got curious of the fact that a downgrader was named as updateflasher. Well, although we have known about it for a little while now, we decided to keep quiet so that you guys would get a huge surprise, come release day.


And well, we guess it's time to let everyone know what Dark_AleX has been working on. How about we tell you that we can run all 1.5 kernel mode homebrew on our 2.71 PSP. While we're at it, we might also add that it's a seamless package. You won't know that the PSP has been modified in any way, apart from the fact that you can run homebrew properly on the 2.71 firmware. All the magic is courtesy of Dark_AleX and his 2.71 Custom Firmware, or as Mathieulh likes to call it, 2.71 SE-A.

---

This modification will not run on a TA-082 PSP. Do not even try it out. It will surely brick your PSP.

---

Download Link: [2.71 Custom Firmware SE-A]
Download Link: [Homebrew Enabler Rev.C for 2.71 PSPs]
Download Link: [Dark_AleX's generic downgrader for 2.71]

The full details await after the jump!

One of the commentors on our frontpage once said, "If the PSP is the Matrix, then Dark_AleX is Neo." And going by the latest developments, it wouldn't be very far from the truth. A few months ago, the PSP scene was "dying". Although homebrew development had been going strong, it still felt like we were going nowhere. New firmwares, blocked homebrew...It had become a regular game. Then came some cracking times (pun intended ;), with the wave of exploits from people like Hitchhikr and NOPX86, and many many more.

The "scene" was resurrected within a few days, and look where we are today! And keeping it going strong is none other than Dark_AleX. If you've found it difficult to use the downgrader, with all the messing around with dumps, or if you've been left out because you couldn't find a dump, Dark_AleX has just made all of it a piece of cake. Now no messing around with dumps, checking to see if it's the correct one. The latest downgrader by Dark_AleX allows you to downgrade your 2.71 PSP to any version upto 1.5.

For the TA-082 owners, the lowest you can go is 2.50. Do not try to downgrade below that, your PSP will brick 100%. Please make sure that you're not running a TA-082 before trying to downgrade below 2.50.

So how does it work? Well, all you need is Dark_AleX's 2.71 Homebrew Enabler Rev.C, and the EBOOT.PBP file of the firmware you want to downgrade to. So you can downgrade from a 2.71 to just about every other firmware including 1.50,2.0,2.01,2.50 and 2.60. And luckily for everyone here, those files can be shared legally. Plus, you can simply download them off our server here. Just select the update file of the firmware you want to downgrade to, and slap the files on your PSP's memory stick. Below is a list of firmwares which we recommend in case you're downgrading. Just click on the respective version to download it.

Firmware Versions

---

1.50 - 2.0 - 2.01 - 2.50 - 2.60

---

Instructions:

• Download Homebrew Enabler for FW 2.71 using the Link below.
• Follow the instructions here to first flash the Homebrew Enabler on your 2.71 FW
• Once done, reboot your PSP and run the Homebrew Enabler using the Photo Menu.
• Now simply extract the files in the downgrader archive below to your PSP and paste the EBOOT.PBP file of the updater into the PSP/GAME/UPDATE folder.
• Now just run the updater using the Game menu!

Here's what Dark_AleX had to say:

"This downgrader lets a psp running firmware 2.71 and HEN C to downgrade to any version from 1.50-2.60, or even reflash the 2.71 version. This downgrader is safer, faster, and a lot easier to use than the previous downgraders. It also makes a clean firmware install, since this time there is a format of flash0 (just like sce updaters do). A firmware dump is not needed, only the eboot.pbp of an update.

Ta-082 users can downgrade to 2.70/2.60/2.50. TA-082 users, DO NOT downgrade below 2.50.

The program is finished and working. Only a bit more of testing is done and it will be released in a couple of hours more or less."

So all of you who've been waiting for a simple solution, I don't believe there can be one simpler than this. If you're still on 2.5/6, you can safely update to 2.71 and either wait it out for more homebrew, or downgrade to 1.5...But looking at all these developments, I feel that 2.71 might just just replace 1.50 as the golden firmware soon. Anyways, enough of talk, here's the download link below. Enjoy!

Download Link: [2.71 Generic Downgrader]
Download Link: [Homebrew Enabler for 2.71 Rev.C]

[Digg This!]

Train2335 stopped by our forums to inform everyone that he has released a "noob" friendly version of which works on 2.60 and is unconfirmed on other firmwares (does not work on 2.80+). This downdater is a port of Dark_Alex's downdater in eboot form. The previous tiff downdaer was released in .bin form, however with Fanjita's newly released eLoader (0.99), you can run this newly created eboot downgrader from it and downgrade your PSP!

For those who doubted, or were confused by the simple tiff downdaer and just didn't want to take the risk - hopefully you will build up enough courage to downgrade today. Although, tomorrow will be a big day for the scene, so if you don't plan on downgrading yet, feel free to wait until tomorrow is over to make your decision! However, with all downgraders, we urge you that you try this at your own risk. There is a possibility that your PSP may brick if you do not use it correctly. It's been untested on many firmwares and has only been reported as working on 2.60 - so please take that into consideration right now. You can download the file below -

Download: [2.0-2.71 Tiff Downdater - eLoader Version]