PS3 Firmware Downgrade? - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

FanIn80 · 11-08-2010, 04:33 PM

If I were to buy a brand new ps3 from Best Buy tonight, is it possible to downgrade the firmware on it to an earlier version?

Hemi-Cuda · 11-08-2010, 04:52 PM

not possible AFAIK, Sony locks in the firmware to prevent downgrading for piracy reasons

photon · 11-08-2010, 05:03 PM

Yeah they'd have to have the current firmware cracked or have some kind of exploit to be able to downgrade to an earlier one.

FanIn80 · 11-08-2010, 05:22 PM

Doh.

Someone was telling me that all I have to do is format the ps3 hard drive and then install a lower firmware manually from usb... but firmware should be on the system chip, not the hard drive, so something smelled fishy about that.

Hemi-Cuda · 11-08-2010, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Doh.

Someone was telling me that all I have to do is format the ps3 hard drive and then install a lower firmware manually from usb... but firmware should be on the system chip, not the hard drive, so something smelled fishy about that.

that's why it's called firmware, and not software

Hack&Lube · 11-08-2010, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Doh.

Someone was telling me that all I have to do is format the ps3 hard drive and then install a lower firmware manually from usb... but firmware should be on the system chip, not the hard drive, so something smelled fishy about that.

Firmware is on the NAND flash which is very difficult to write to. Nothing you can do about it. Why? Do you want to use PS3 Jailbreak? New updates should be available for new firmwares soon if not already.

photon · 11-08-2010, 09:41 PM

I don't know if there will be updates, the thing that let them do it in the first place was an exploit on the USB driver, and they patched that.. took them what, almost 4 years to crack it with a flawed USB driver, gonna be tough to keep it going. I'd bet they'll either keep it at the cracked firmware version and patch the games so you can play them, or if they're really ambitious release custom firmware, but I haven't seen anything like that so far.

Apparently CoD Black Ops requires the newest firmware too.

Hack&Lube · 11-08-2010, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by photon

I don't know if there will be updates, the thing that let them do it in the first place was an exploit on the USB driver, and they patched that.. took them what, almost 4 years to crack it with a flawed USB driver, gonna be tough to keep it going. I'd bet they'll either keep it at the cracked firmware version and patch the games so you can play them, or if they're really ambitious release custom firmware, but I haven't seen anything like that so far.

Apparently CoD Black Ops requires the newest firmware too.

I was told that there were new updates to deal with games that require the latest firmware which make them playable, but perhaps your actual system still needs to be the old firmware in order to get anything to work in the first place. I've tried one, it's pretty painless.

Sadly, my own PS3 has corrupted nand flash and I really don't feel like giving Sony (who outsources it to MPC tech or something in Canada) $200 to fix it. In the US, Sony would do it for free.

FanIn80 · 11-08-2010, 09:50 PM

I have a buddy who has his jailbroken. Everything's on a USB thumb drive that he bought for $35. The catch is the system firmware has to be at 3.14 or lower, since 3.15 is when they fixed it. Also, as for the "games requiring the latest firmware" thing, the USB drive comes with an app that allows him to edit a file on the system that tricks the game into thinking the latest firmware is installed. He also gets new releases from them and an app that allows him to keep re-flashing the USB drive with each new release.

Anyway, I get the difference between firmware and software, and how everything works... but this guy seemed pretty convinced, so I thought I'd ask here if anyone knew of a way to do it. I'm not really looking forward to buying a used one off kijiji. Driving around looking at firmwares, and then having to buy one that's beat up and has chip crumbs caked inside everything...

Hemi-Cuda · 11-08-2010, 11:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I have a buddy who has his jailbroken. Everything's on a USB thumb drive that he bought for $35. The catch is the system firmware has to be at 3.14 or lower, since 3.15 is when they fixed it. Also, as for the "games requiring the latest firmware" thing, the USB drive comes with an app that allows him to edit a file on the system that tricks the game into thinking the latest firmware is installed. He also gets new releases from them and an app that allows him to keep re-flashing the USB drive with each new release.

Anyway, I get the difference between firmware and software, and how everything works... but this guy seemed pretty convinced, so I thought I'd ask here if anyone knew of a way to do it. I'm not really looking forward to buying a used one off kijiji. Driving around looking at firmwares, and then having to buy one that's beat up and has chip crumbs caked inside everything...

or you could just, i dunno, pay for your games...

iggyntangs · 11-09-2010, 12:02 AM

Now why would you do that?

SebC · 11-09-2010, 02:22 AM

You want freedom, you want a PC. :P

The Yen Man · 11-09-2010, 08:49 AM

So is there any other purpose to jailbreaking the PS3 other than to play pirated games?

FanIn80 · 11-09-2010, 03:42 PM

I don't know anything about pirated games. I just want to jailbreak it so I can use it to feed starving children in Africa.

SebC · 11-09-2010, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

So is there any other purpose to jailbreaking the PS3 other than to play pirated games?

So you can run Linux?

sclitheroe · 11-09-2010, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SebC

So you can run Linux?

You've obviously never tried Linux on the PS3. Brutal.

Nothing nicer than 256 megs of RAM, a dumb framebuffer for X, and using half your video memory for swap.

Unless you had a text mode app that did number crunching on the Cell, there was nothing nice about Linux on the PS3.

SebC · 11-09-2010, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

You've obviously never tried Linux on the PS3. Brutal.

Nothing nicer than 256 megs of RAM, a dumb framebuffer for X, and using half your video memory for swap.

Unless you had a text mode app that did number crunching on the Cell, there was nothing nice about Linux on the PS3.

Never said I wanted to do it, just that someone might.

WilsonFourTwo · 11-10-2010, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SebC

You want freedom, you want a PC. :P

It would be MUCH cheaper for him to just pay for the damn games.....

Hack&Lube · 11-10-2010, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

You've obviously never tried Linux on the PS3. Brutal.

Nothing nicer than 256 megs of RAM, a dumb framebuffer for X, and using half your video memory for swap.

Unless you had a text mode app that did number crunching on the Cell, there was nothing nice about Linux on the PS3.

Yeah, it's so terrible that the US Airforce has 2000 PS3s running linux.

Hack&Lube · 11-10-2010, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

So is there any other purpose to jailbreaking the PS3 other than to play pirated games?

Run homebrew? Other OS's? Create a better media server? I guess having all your games load off a fast harddrive or SSD is also much faster than having to load off BluRay as well.

If you jailbreak, you can't go online with your PS3 anymore though.