Hacking Old PSP found from years ago, best way of hacking it?

[Platinum2183]

Hello, sorry that this may be a crappy post or whatever, but I'm kind of clueless as to what to do with my PSP. I believe it is a PSP-2003(?), and it is currently on 5.00 M33-6. What does this mean and what is the best thing to do with it? Thanks a lot.

 

[retrofan_k]

Head over to http://wololo.net/cfw4dummies/ it will answer all you're questions

 

[FAST6191]

Is the battery still good? They have a habit of being a bit bloaty if left for too long. Though I guess if you booted it far enough to see what firmware you are on then it is fine.

Anyway that sounds like you might have a permanent flash capable 2000 which is pretty sweet if so and for many that is the PSP model of choice. 5.0M33-6 means you are on hacked firmware version 6 of M33's custom firmware based on the 5.0 firmware line of the PSP. It is old, and I am guessing it was hacked with chickhen exploits or something. You can do a lot with that firmware but I would definitely upgrade.
In the subsequent years there were more custom firmwares and the keys to the kingdom were found in the PS3s when they were hacked -- a lot of homebrew is now signed and runnable on stock firmwares, though you still want a hacked one for some homebrew and ease of running games.

retrofan_k's link will do nicely, in your case http://wololo.net/installing-pro-cfw-on-a-psp-2000-slim/

 

[Platinum2183]

Is the battery still good? They have a habit of being a bit bloaty if left for too long. Though I guess if you booted it far enough to see what firmware you are on then it is fine.

Anyway that sounds like you might have a permanent flash capable 2000 which is pretty sweet if so and for many that is the PSP model of choice. 5.0M33-6 means you are on hacked firmware version 6 of M33's custom firmware based on the 5.0 firmware line of the PSP. It is old, and I am guessing it was hacked with chickhen exploits or something. You can do a lot with that firmware but I would definitely upgrade.
In the subsequent years there were more custom firmwares and the keys to the kingdom were found in the PS3s when they were hacked -- a lot of homebrew is now signed and runnable on stock firmwares, though you still want a hacked one for some homebrew and ease of running games.

retrofan_k's link will do nicely, in your case http://wololo.net/installing-pro-cfw-on-a-psp-2000-slim/

ah thanks, this helps a lot. So my PSP has already been hacked? Will this affect updating? Also one last question, digging it out over a few years I have noticed that the C-stick is rather faulty. Is it easily fixable/replaceable? Thanks!

 

[FAST6191]

They can be a tiny bit fiddly and annoying but it is not a major job with serious soldering or anything. Most of the time though it is a bit of something got in there though so if you pull it apart, find that, lose it and put it back together it might sort itself. That said a few replacement sticks still seem to be available wherever you find replacement parts (plus amazon, ebay and what have you) so you could replace outright. Afraid I have not kept up with what goes for replacements, though if you can get OEM then do so.

Being hacked already made it a bit annoying to move to some of the later hacked firmwares at times, especially if you did not have another means of exploiting, and if you wanted to do network updates it might be blocked (hold R when booting to get into the "recovery" mode and see what goes) but now you can do a straight update to whatever you need.