When flashing the PSP...

[gordon]

I was wondering, whenever you do an upgrade from 1.5 to custom firmwares like 3.03 OE-A.

Does it damage the hardware inside the PSP?
Or does it slowly damage it?
I want my PSP to last long but I recently upgraded to 3.03 OE-A and I'm thinking if it was a good idea.
The psp updated from 1.5 to 3.03 perfectly, thank god. But I was wondering is there a risk of my psp dying?

How come bricking happens? And I've also read on the internet that people get the blue screen of death? What the hell are these things?

When you update custom firmwares how come it is unsafe to do so?

Sorry if I'm asking noob questions but I wanna be on the safeside and know that my psp is fine.

How can I downgrade back from 3.03 to 1.5?

[ICE]

no it wont slowly kill it. bricking occurs when you do something wrong when you flash same with blue screen.

[jak66]

1) I've heard that you can only write to the PSPs flash 1,000 times, so updating can damage it, official or unofficial
2) People 'brick' there PSPs when key files are not found on the PSPs flash (thus cannot be loaded, so PSP crashes)
3) There are 2 Blue Screens of Death (BSoD). The first comes if you have corrupt registry settings. The second is usually only seen when playing homebrew.
Worse than the BSoD, is the RSoD (Red...) which is caused by corrupt FLASH0:/ data (According to wikipedia). There is also a RSoD simmilar to the second BSoD, I've only ever got it once so no screenshot of that one, sorry.
4) Updating to custom firmwares can be unsafe because if you flash a corrupt DATA.DXAR (Shuldn't happen because the flasher checks the SHA-1 value, i think) then your PSPs flash will be missing some prx's it needs.
5) To recover back to 1.50 take the 'files for recovery' from the 3.02 OE-A update (copy the RECOVERY folder) and place them inside the GAME folder, also, get a 1.50 update eboot and rename it from EBOOT.PBP to UPDATE.PBP and put it in the RECOVERY folder. Now boot into the recovery menu (R on startup) and press X when you have highlighted 'Run program at ms0:/PSP/GAME/RECOVERY/EBOOT.PBP'. You need 75% battery or it won't start (L+/\ skips the battery check)

[splodger15]

I would hate to get RSOD

[carlitx]

same here but i also herd a story from a friend that some one he knew had his psp die slowly over time.... i don't realy know wat he means but i do know that it resluted in a brick.... so i got kind of nervous on my custom firmwear but scince i can allways restore to 1.50 using the recovery menu than theres no need for me to worry...right?

[scottyboynow]

How can a psp die slowly after time

[gordon]

How can a psp die slowly after time

When you flash the nand flash chip in the psp over and over again? How would I know. I am asking the same question. You know DVD Drives. You can only change the region 3 times before it dies. I am wondering is there a certian limit i can flash my memory before it dies.

I don't really trust custom firmwares... How can a flashing process go wrong and cause red screen of death or blue screen of death. When you flash, it is so simple. You put the files in the right folder of the psp and you flash. I don't know why people would report bricking. So I am curious, if the nand memory inside the psp has a certian limit it can be flashed.

Or, does the nand have a computer that monitors how many times it can be flashed. Like say the nand knows that it has 5 times to flash MAX. What if you flash 5 times and then the psp cannot be flashed anymore?

Even with recovery programs I am still worried. There is no actual "recovery program" that can save us from a red screen of death. The blue screen is just a warning.
I think there should be a cable where you port into the psp so you can rewrite the nand flash with a virgin 1.5 firmware on it. Without having the PSP to be turned on.

Someone should design a tool that can flash the bricked psp. Like how when you unlock your cellphone or update your cellphones firmware.

Once your psp is bricked you have to buy a new one, thats real gay.


So if someone can give me a postive answer that there is no bricking or damaging your nand flash when flashing to custom firmwares I would greatly appreciate it.

[scottyboynow]

Apparently according to rumours you can flash to your PSP NAND 1000 times.

[carlitx]

ok well that sounds good for me but a more acurate responce would be nice besides just rumors.

[Shrygue]

Any type of flash memory will wear out eventually due to repeated write operations and the PSP is definately no exception. Even the pro duo memory cards for the console, although their writing limit is around 10,000 or so, it could be higher but i'm not entirely sure.