PSP WOW blog

I. Get ready (Reformat PSP memory stick)

Before you get started with the downgrade, you need to reformat your PSP memory stick. If you don’t know how to reformat it, you can refer to the steps below:

1.Press the HOME button on the bottom left of your PSP.

2.Use the arrow keys to move to the Settings area, then move the up and down keys to go to System Settings.

3.Push the “X” button (or the “O” button, depending on which button is the “Enter” button of your PSP) and scroll to find the “Format Memory Stick” option. Push the “X” button again to select this option.

4.Your PSP will now confirm that you want to reformat the memory stick, choose Yes and your PSP will be physically formatted in a few seconds

To do the downgrade, you also need to download an application pack. Click Download Pandora Battery Application Pack (Find the Guides label on the right side,which named Download for PSP downgrade application). After the downloading is finished, what you get will be a compressed application pack named “pandora”, decompress it to the root directory of a hard disc, say Disc H. In this “pandora” folder, you can see four folders including mspformat, msinst, battery and installer, and a file named UPDATE.PBP.

Now you are ALL ready to turn your PSP battery to a Pandora’s battery and use it to downgrade any PSP!

II.Turn your PSP battery into a padora’s battery

Step 1: Logically reformat your PSP

Connect your PSP to your computer. And your PSP will be recognized as a new hard disc, say K. Then click Start -> Run, input cmd in the popped up dialog box, and click OK to enter DOS system. Use the below commands one by one to run the mspformat file:

Input “H:”, and press the “Enter” Key on your keyboard. (Here H is the disc where the “panndora” folder is located)

Input “cd pandora” and press the “Enter” Key on your keyboard.

Input “cd mspformat” and press the “Enter” Key on your keyboard.

Then input “mspformat.exe K” and press the “Enter” Key on your keyboard. (Here K is the name of the disc that your PSP is recognized on your computer.)

After these commands, your PSP will be logically reformatted in a minute.

Step 2: Open the recognized PSP hard disc on your computer, create a new folder and name it “psp”, open this “psp” folder, create a new folder and name it “game”. Copy and paste the “installer” folder and the “battery” folder into the “game” folder. Then copy and paste the UPDATE.PBP file to the root directory of the PSP hard disc on your computer.

Step 3: On your PSP, switch to the Game option, press X or O (depending on which is the “Enter” key of your PSP). Go to “installer” and press X or O to run it.

In a few seconds, a file named “msipl.bin” will be created on the root directory of your PSP memory disc. And now, you should take out your memory disc and then put it back in, which seems to be useless but is a very necessary step.

Step 4: Connect to your PSP back to your computer. Then enter DOS system as mentioned in Step 1. Use the below commands one by one to run the mspformat file:

Input “H:”, and press the “Enter” Key on your keyboard.

Input “cd pandora” and press the “Enter” Key on your keyboard.

Input “cd minst” and press the “Enter” Key on your keyboard.

Then input “msinst.exe K K:msipl.bin ” and press the “Enter” Key on your keyboard. (Here K is the name of the disc that your PSP is recognized on your computer.)

When you see a popped up message asking if you are sure, click “Yes”.

Step 5: Go back to your PSP, switch to the Game option, press X or O (depending on which is the “Enter” key of your PSP). Go to “battery” and press X or O to run it, press X or O to OK every popped up message to finish running the battery application.

Now, your pandora’s battery has been created!

III. Use the created pandora’s battery to downgrade your PSP

After you turn your batter to a PSP downgrade battery (pandora’s battery), you can use it to downgrade your PSP by following the instructions below:

Take out your PSP Memory Stick and battery, then put back in your PSP Memory Stick first, and put your battery back in.

Turn your PSP power on, when you see three options; select the Downgrade option, your PSP will be downgraded in a very short time and it will be automatically shut down afterwards.

Turn your PSP on again, and you will see a blue screen. But no worries, you can just press the O key, and your PSP system is already version 1.5!

Note: The above process will turn your PSP battery to a pandora’s battery that can be used for PSP downgrade. But the pandora’s battery cannot be used to play PSP games, videos or music. And the process is not reversible. You will need to get an additional PSP battery for regular uses. However, you can use your pandora’s battery to downgrade any PSP to version 1.5 or even repair you PSP.

There are many sites currently online which offer free downloads for PSP games like PSP Blender and PSP Wizard but they still cost around 35.00$ and 40.00$ for a decent download speed. Though these sites are great sources paying is not preferable in any case so why not use torrents? Torrents are not only good for movies but also great for PSP and PS3 games as well. What people do very often is Google or search for “free psp game downloads” or “free psp games” and download malware or spyware unsuspectingly in the quest for games which are absolutely free. That poses a security risk to your PC which is unadvisable.

Torrent Clients

So how to get totally free games, well for starters download uTorrent (utorent.com) or any good BitTorrent client. Sticking to uTorrent is good as it is barely a 200KB file and is very light on system resources, not to mention it runs like a breeze without any trouble. Before beginning to download it is suggested that you have the Windows XP firewall turned on and that the torrent client is listed under exceptions (even in other firewall software), if not then your downloads will be considerably slower. Also recommended is a minimum 256Kbps broadband connection with an equal upload capability (basic rule to good torrent sharing is upload as much as you download). For perfect security also have a good anti-virus software of your choice installed.

Downloading the Torrent and Speeds

After the initial preparations have been completed then go to a good torrent indexing service such as torrentz.com or mininova and search using basic keywords such as psp games, psp, ps3 games, ps2 games,ps2 or just ps3 as per the console you own. Running the torrent is quite simple, download the *.torrent file (example Stacked.torrent) open it using the torrent client, then click on the utorrent compatible list link on the indexer page, copy the trackers (these are services which index the file so more people can share, remember more people sharing means more peers and seeds, which translates into faster downloads). Paste these trackers using the advanced tab when the file is opened in the torrent client (there will be pre-existing trackers just remove them or paste over them for the best performance). Click ok and you are ready to go, the download starts, the download speed is usually 120KB for a 1Mbps connection (figures in per second) so a 100 MB file takes around 14-15 minutes to download (speeds are never constant).

ISO and CSO Formats

The best part about all this is that the files in the current torrent file can be viewed prior to downloading (just the names) and if the files are .iso or .cso (image files of PS games) you are on your way to go. Just copy them into the games folder of your memory stick and they will show up as games ready to play. For all the PS consoles the basic element to remember before you go through this procedure is that there has to be customised firmware and the Home Brew application previously installed for any of this to work and they also are available for download with instruction files on how to customise the firmware.

There are also PSP compatible movies which are pre-encoded to run directly by copying them into the movies folder of the PSP to which may be downloaded using the torrent trackers and files, so no more painstakingly converting movies or spending on expensive mp4 converters. The movies are already in the prescribed format so they may be directly played. The procedure for a movie torrent is the same as for games. The process requires a little more patience than direct downloading but hey its completely free and that makes this worth it.

Chapter 1: General Tips

1. Turn on / Turn off the PSP

When you want to turn off the PSP, you need to push button “Power” upward and keep it pushed for 4 or 5 seconds and then release the button. By doing that way, your PSP is turned off actually. Otherwise, if you just push the button “Power” and release it immediately, you do not turn off the PSP but suspend it (Stand-by mode). If you did not notice the difference before, take it easy, for the PSP in stand-by mode costs little power, and there is no negative influence.

2. Some people say it is intensely inconvenient to put PSPs in trousers pockets when them enjoy the music, because buttons are pressed by accident. It is very easy to solve this problem by the lock function of the PSP. Just push the button “Power” to the opposite direction (downward), the keyboard is locked, and conversely, pushing button “Power” back will un-lock the keyboard. Please push button “Power” back (upward) lightly, or you may turn the PSP to the standby mode. Additional, the way of using headphone with remote control to lock / un-lock the PSP is the same as WALKMAN.

3. Why does not “Note” button on the PSP work?

The “Note” button is used to select the sound mode. So, it works only when the headphone is plugged in.

4. Are the headphone control with the remote control and buttons on the PSP of the same functions or independent?

Generally, they have the same functions. Besides, there is a tip: after locking the PSP with one of them, you need to use the other one to control the PSP. E.g. If you lock the PSP by buttons on it, you can only use headphone to control the PSP then. This function is designed for listening to MP3 music or watching MP4 movies, because when you are enjoying the music and movies, it is more convenient to control the PSP by the headphone.

5. Is it possible to turn off the screen when I am listening to MP3 music?

The answer is simple: Sure it is. Keep the button “Brightness Control” pressed for two seconds or more, the screen is turned off automatically. It saves power when you listen to MP3. Press any key to turn on the screen again.

6. Is there brightness level 4 in the PSP?

Usually, with the battery, the PSP can reach brightness level 3 and the brightness level 4 is available only when the power adaptor is plugged in. the problem is obvious – we can’t drag the power cord everywhere. But now, the problem is over. Here is a handy method for keeping the PSP locked on Brightness Level 4. Please following steps below:

[1]. Plug in the power cord.

[2]. Adjust the brightness to Level 4.

[3]. Start a UMD game.

When the video of program launch is being played, make sure to unplug the power cord from your PSP when the launch sound effect is over. You will notice that the brightness will not fall back to level 3.

7. How to zoom in / zoom out images by buttons?

When you browse images, keep button “Square” and slide the upward / downward to zoom in / zoom out images. Slide the with button “Square” released, you can change viewing area the of the image

Chapter 2: Tips for the battery

1. How long is the battery able to sustain?

The battery can sustain about 4 to 6 hours when play games, and 3 to 5 when watch movies. In standby mode, the battery sustains about 6 to 10 hours.

2. Do I need to charge the battery up more then 12 hours in the prime 3 uses?

It is unnecessary to charge the battery deeply. Unlike the Ni-MH battery, the lithium battery in the PSP does not need deep charging in the first 3 uses.

3. How long does it need to charge the battery up?

It takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes, but it is recommended to charge the battery for extra 20 to 30 minutes to charge the battery up actually.

4. If you play games or watch movies with power adapter for long, you had better get the battery out to extend the life of it.

5. 24 hours after the battery is gotten out, the system will re-initialize and date and time need to be reset. Do not worry about this for it is normal.

Chapter 3: About the WiFi

1. The WiFi Switch is on the left side of the PSP. Push upward to turn on and push downward to turn off, and make sure you do not confuse them. For the WiFi function is similar to BlueTooth, you had better to turn it off to save the power after the use.

2. To avoid negative influence to electronic devices and medical devices, please keep the WiFi off when you are on the plane, in the hospital or near the fire alarm.

Chapter 4: About the LCD

1. It is recommended to use a piece of LCD protective film to avoid potential damages to the screen.

2. Note: The LCD will be damaged if a static image is displayed for too long.

3. Use soft fabric or paper to clean the LCD, and do not use rough paper, which may scratch the screen.

Chapter 5: Convert, store and play movies

1. Generally, PSP supports two video formats: MP4 and AVC. To be played, video files of different formats should be stored in proper folders, which are needed to be created by you. Please refer to the following instruction:

[1]. Create a folder named “100MNV01″ under the MP_ROOT folder in the memory stick.. This folder is used for storing MP4 videos.

[2]. Create a folder named “100ANV01″ under the MP_ROOT folder, and store AVC videos in this folder.

Tips: For the inconvenience of creating folders and transmitting videos to certain folders manually, we recommend you to use Agile PSP Video Manager, which is a freeware for transmitting videos between your PSP and the computer. You can find the download link in the bottom of this article.

2. How can I convert videos of various formats to PSP compatible videos?

There are many softwares for converting video files to PSP compatible videos. Agile PSP Video Converter is one of the best and easiest. With only 3 steps, you can convert almost all popular video such as AVI, MPEG, WMV, MOV… to PSP rapidly. The download link is listed below.