Electronic Batteries Info

All for one, and one for all. A project promulgated under the collective Noobz - more officially branded as N00bz! - has given birth to another monumental development in homebrew: a PSP unbricker for every Sony PlayStation Portable. In short summary, it would perform the following:

1. You run a program on a homebrew-enabled PSP that will convert a standard PSP Battery into a jigkick battery. Note that you can’t then use that battery normally - so you should use a spare one.
2. You run a program to generate the unbricker memory stick image, built from the v1.5 update EBOOT (note that this, and the custom IPL, means the release is completely free of Sony copyright materials).
3. You run some programs on a PC to install the image to your memory stick.

Earlier, Fanjita announced that Noobz and C+D developers would release an unbricker for bricked PSPs as a result of a “faulty decryption algorithm,” but the C+D devs thought they could do even better. Chalking up another feat to the Prometheus project, C+D created an unbricker for all PSPs, even without accessing the official software or hardware. But in essence, the feat wouldn’t have made successful waves if the the following victories hadn’t made ripples to start with:

• Reverse engineering of the service (unbrick) mode
• Development of a technique to change an ordinary battery into a service mode trigger battery (and back)
• Development of custom IPL code along with a technique to sign that code as authentic

Of course, similar to a few CFW releases before, the unbricker was leaked before it was officially released, and C+D has yet to tie down the reasons for the leak. What was important to mention, however, is that the unbricker is completely free, and some people have tried to gain profits from the leaked unbricker over several websites around the world. Yet again, the early release of the unbricker was necessary, even if it was originally planned to unravel at the release of the PSP Slim.

Noobz salutes the members of the Prometheus project, namely Adrahil, Booster, Cswindle, Dark_AleX , Ditlew, Fanjita, Joek2100, Jim, Mathieulh, Nem, Psp250, Skylark, and TyRaNiD - who should also be recognized in their Create and Destroy (C+D) identities as follows:

• Mathieulh = WiseFellow
• Tyranid = bockscar
• Fanjita = FullerMonty
• Joek = CosmicOverSoul
• Dark_Alex = Malyot
• Chris = Caretaker
• Adrahil = VoidPointer
• nem = h1ckeyph0rce

Just as Noobz warns, please take care to read the file’s readme for the instructions. Failure to do so will cause degrees of risk to your PSP.

Thanks to demologik, EXTER, and MozyMan for the tip off!

The “Pandora’s Battery” as they call it, is just a regular psp battery. The battery of a psp has flash memory on it with boot information for the system. When converting the battery for this downgrade procedure, the psp program that you use actually dumps the batteries flash and puts a bin image with official sony firmware 1.50 and some developer code. When you place the converted battery into the psp it boots and runs the developer code and downgrades the psp. At this point, they say that the battery is useless. They have come out with an update that will convert the battery back and thats why they dump the flash first. After the psp is downgraded, if you use the converted “pandora’s battery” as your power source, it will only run a partial of the 1.50 firmware because of the missing battery flash files. in order to have full 1.50 you must convert your battery back into a normal one.

For wholesale pirce of the PSP pandora battery, pls email us at: info@power2battery.com to ask for quote, we’ll supply a equal and competitive price to you.

The “Pandora’s Battery” as they call it, is just a regular PSP Battery . The battery of a psp has flash memory on it with boot information for the system. When converting the battery for this downgrade procedure, the psp program that you use actually dumps the batteries flash and puts a bin image with official sony firmware 1.50 and some developer code. When you place the converted battery into the psp it boots and runs the developer code and downgrades the psp. At this point, they say that the battery is useless. They have come out with an update that will convert the battery back and thats why they dump the flash first. After the psp is downgraded, if you use the converted “pandora battery” as your power source, it will only run a partial of the 1.50 firmware because of the missing battery flash files. in order to have full 1.50 you must convert your battery back into a normal one.

The reason a PSP running 1.50 or custom firmware is required to create a pandora’s battery is that you have to run some unsigned (i.e. homebrew) programs from the PSP itself to create the battery. Also, a memory stick pro duo is also required. Most people are suggesting to use a 256MB one, as it is the smallest pro duo you can get, plus it’s guaranteed to work on one that small. You can’t create a ‘jigstick’ (that’s what they call the memory stick that works with the battery) out of a 4GB or larger one. A jigstick will work as a normal memory stick, but you have to have a jigstick to use the pandora’s battery. Creating the jigstick is part of the process of creating the battery in the first place, so if you get a spare battery, a 256mb-2gb memory stick pro duo, and have access to a 1.5 or custom firmware PSP, just follow the instructions and you’re set.

On August 22, 2007, Team C+D released the “Pandora’s Battery” that can convert a spare Memory Stick Pro Duo and battery into a “Magic Memory Stick” and a “JigKick Battery”. The Memory Stick and the JigKick battery couple is called “Pandora’s Battery”. The Memory Stick and battery can then be used to downgrade any PSP of any version or to recover from a brick. To convert the Memory Stick and battery another PSP which is able to run 1.50 homebrew is needed. The Memory Stick can also be converted without using a homebrew PSP by using a Pandora’s battery program, such as Pandora Easy GUI. After the downgrade/unbrick service has been completed, the Memory Stick and battery can be restored for normal usage.

A “JigKick Battery” is a battery with the first adress in the EEPROM chip changed to 0xFFFFFFFF. This unlocks the service mode of the PSP and launches the IPL from the Memory Stick (instead of from flash0). A “Magic Memory Stick” consists of a reverse-engineered IPL and a minimal subset of the firmware 1.50 stored on a Memory Stick Pro Duo. This downgrader can downgrade all firmware versions. The original version is incompatible with the PSP Slim & Lite due to the 1.50 IPL being incompatible with PSP Slim & Lite hardware. However, on September 28, 2007, a version that works on both the old style PSP and the Slim & Lite was released. The new debricker is called Despertar del Cementerio, and is also known as the Universal Unbricker, which was developed by Dark_Alex. Instead of installing firmware version 1.50, it installs a custom firmware.(PSP Battery )

The “JigKick” battery can also be created by lifting the fifth pin of the EEPROM on the battery’s mainboard, circled here. This is somewhat dangerous because it disables the EEPROM entirely, and may have side effects such as overheating if pin 5 is shorted to other pins while desoldering.

The battery that is included with the PSP Slim can also be converted into a “Pandora” battery by using the hardware modification method mentioned above.

There is now a method that will enable users of custom firmware above 3.71 M33 which does not automatically have the 1.50 firmware kernel to create a Pandora battery. This method can be found here.

Though Sony advocates against use of any homebrew, representatives have said that the Pandora’s Battery will not physically harm the PSP in any manner, as this is the same method used by Sony when customers send in their bricked PSPs for repair.