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GUIDE: How to use Hellcats Recovery Flasher

2010-06-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

Ok I know most people know how to use this program, but it seems people are using the wrong versions or people say "Use hellcats recovery flasher" and they don't know what it is, so rather people keep repeating themselves, I thought i'd do a quick guide that you can refer people to.

How to use Hellcats Recovery Flasher

First of all, you'll want to download the latest version of the program. Currently version 1.60, get it here. The download will be a RAR folder. Save it to your hard drive somewhere (preferably in it's own folder, called Recovery Flasher or something similar), then extract all of the contents using WinRAR or similar extraction program. You should then have, somewhere on your PC, the following folders and files:

If you don't, you've done something wrong and need to re-extract them. Once you do, remember where they are, you'll need some of them, which ones depends on what you're doing. There are three scenarios where you would need to use this program, i'll detail the process below.

The recovery flasher will work from several firmwares, and this list will quickly tell you which:

1.50 Official Sony Firmware
Open Edition (OE) custom firmware (all revisions)
M33 custom firmware (all revisions from 3.52 M33 upwards)
GEN custom firmware (5.50 GEN-B2, GEN-D2 only)
5.03 Official Sony Firmware ONLY when Homebrew Enabled (HEN) by ChickHEN.

SCENARIO 1: You are on 1.50 Official Firmware or Open Edition (OE) custom firmware, and wish to go to the latest Custom Firmware.

For this scenario, you will need only the files inside the 'FW.150' folder to complete the process. Open the folder and you should see two more folders, like this:

Connect your PSP to your computer. On your Memory stick, browse to the directory PSP/GAME. Now go back to the above folders. Highlight them both and copy them, by either pressing CTRL+C, or right clicking and selecting copy. Then go to PSP/GAME on your memory stick and paste them in there, either by pressing CTRL+V or right clicking and selecting paste. Those two folders should now be under PSP/GAME on your memory stick.

That is is for the 1.50FW/Early OE custom firmware specific section of the guide. Continue to the second post of this guide for further instructions that are universal (GUIDE: How to use Hellcats Recovery Flasher)

SCENARIO 2: You are already on an older version of M33 firmware, and need to update to the latest version, or on a newer custom firmware and want to revert back to an older version.

Firstly be aware this program will not work on versions below 3.52 M33-3, so if you are on a custom firmware below that, which will be Open Edition (OE), use scenario one.

Also, this only works on the GEN firmware 5.50 GEN-B2 and above. It won't work on 5.50 GEN-A or GEN-B, so update that first.

For this scenario, you will need the files in the 'RECOVERY' folder, as highlighted here:

Connect your PSP to the PC, and browse to the PSP/GAME folder. Now on your PC, copy the whole recovery folder, and paste it into PSP/GAME. So as you look through your directories, you should have this structure:

ms0:/PSP/GAME/RECOVERY/EBOOT.PBP

That is is for the CFW specific section of the guide.

SCENARIO 3: You have used ChickHEN on your PSP and wish to flash full custom firmware on your hackable PSP.

************************************************** **
VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE YOU READ THIS SECTION. NOT ALL PSPs THAT CAN RUN CHICKHEN, CAN RUN FULL CUSTOM FIRMWARE. IF YOUR PSP IS A PSP 2000 WITH TA-088v3 MOTHERBOARD or PSP 3000, YOU CAN NOT, I REPEAT NOT, FLASH FULL CUSTOM FIRMWARE WITH HELLCATS RECOVERY FLASHER. IF YOU ATTEMPT TO DO SO, YOU WILL BRICK YOUR PSP. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! IF YOU ARE NOT SURE, RUN PSP IDENT UNDER THE HEN ENVIRONMENT AND SEE WHAT MODEL NUMBER AND MOTHERBOARD YOU HAVE.
************************************************** ***

Ok if you're sure you have a fully hackable PSP, you can proceed with this. Please note that you need to be in the HEN environment for any of this to work. If you're not, you'll get an error message saying the game cannot be run. So make sure you are in HEN, by checking your PSP system software.

For this scenario, you will need the files in the 'RECOVERY' folder, as highlighted here:

Connect your PSP to the PC, and browse to the PSP/GAME folder. Now on your PC, copy the whole recovery folder, and paste it into PSP/GAME. So as you look through your directories, you should have this structure:

ms0:/PSP/GAME/RECOVERY/EBOOT.PBP

That is is for the ChickHEN specific section of the guide.

GETTING THE OFFICIAL EBOOT FILE OF THE CUSTOM FIRMWARE YOU INTEND TO INSTALL

The next step is to get the official EBOOT file that corresponds to the custom firmware version you are attempting to flash. So if you want 3.71 M33, you'll need the 3.71 EBOOT, if you want to go to 4.01 M33 you'll need the 4.01 EBOOT, and so on. The highest firmware you can go to with this program is 5.00 M33-6, and so if you wish to do that, you'll need the 5.00 EBOOT.

I'm not going to provide links to all of the eboots, they are easily found by google and other methods, but here is the latest one that most will want, the 5.00 EBOOT:

500.PBP

Note that the file needs to be in number format for the firmware. So if you download a file and it's just called EBOOT.PBP, rename it to the corresponding firmware number. So the 3.71 EBOOT would be renamed 371.PBP, 4.01 would be 401.PBP, and so on.

Now you have that file, you need to place it on the root of your memory stick. That is the first area you see when you open your PSP memory stick. It's the same place your PSP folder is, and probably a few others. Drag and drop your renamed file anywhere onto there.

FINAL PROCESS: Running the program itself on the PSP.

Ok that is all the ground work done, you're now ready to run the program. If you've done everything correctly, you should be able to browse to the program under GAME>Memory Stick. Once the program loads (you may get a disclaimer type page first to accept), you'll see something like this screen:

500.PBP

You're nearly there. All you need to do is move the arrow to the first option to select the firmware you want your CFW to be based on. So if you want 5.00 M33-6, you would set it as above, but you can cycle through and set any firmware. Just make sure it's the same as the official EBOOT you dumped onto the root of your memory stick.

Now all you need to do is choose the option highlighted on the above image, 'Install M33 Custom Firmware (of version selected above). Hit that, and the PSP should then install the custom firmware. The PSP will restart when it's done, and voila, you have the full custom firmware you wanted.

You can now delete any files you added to your memory stick relating to the flasher if you wish.

Source : PspMod[dot]Com

How to downgrade PSP 1000 with firmware 3.50 and lower (For installing CFW)

2010-06-11T10:24:00.000-07:00

Ultimate Downgrader Thread

The following guides are for downgrading the firmware of PSP 1000 models running 3.50 firmware and lower only. If you have a PSP 2000, PSP 3000 or your firmware is above 3.50, look at other options for hacking your PSP. These will not work and could damage your PSP.

All of these guides have the aim of getting your PSP to version 1.50 using purely software hacks as an alternative to hardware methods (Pandora Battery), from which you can then install Custom Firmware. Click the link at the end of each guide for details on how to do that.

Disclaimers:
1. Any downgrader has potential to brick your psp, so proceed with caution and at your own risk. If you brick your PSP it CAN now be recovered, but you will need additional hardware for that (Pandora Battery).
2. ALWAYS downgrade with a fully charged battery pack and the psp plugged into the ac adapter.
3. Only download the software from well known sites linked in the guides.
4. Follow the directions carefully to avoid possible damage of your psp.
5. For safety reasons, please use a reformated empty memory card when attempting to downgrade. Backup any data before reformatting.
6. throughly read the README files that come with all software. most questions can be answered there instead of asking in this thread

PSPMod.com or any website you download software from is not responsible for anything you do to your own PSP. All of the guides given here are however fully tested and known to work.

Summary:

There are downgraders for the following firmwares. Please note there are other downgraders available, but these are the 'best' to use, so if you have firmware in between these downgraders, simply update manually to the next firmware with a downgrader. For example if you're running 2.50, update to 2.71.

2.00 - Requires the MPH downgrader.
2.71 - Requires the "red screen" downgrader
3.03 - Requires an unpatched copy of 'GTA Liberty City Stories'.
3.50 - Can be downgraded with a copy of 'Lumines' (US or EU version only)

2.00 Downgrader
(Tutorial By. Elliot Phillips @ Hack-A-Day.com, modified by killer @ PSPMod.com)

This will work on any PSP that is running the 2.00 firmware and has never run firmware above that. If you have downgraded from another higher firmware this may not work.

Step 1a: Download the downgrader by clicking here.
Step 1b: Download the 1.50 EBOOT by clicking here. Rename it EBOOT.PBP, rather than 150.PBP.

Step 2: Connect your PSP to your computer via USB. On your memory stick, create a folder called UPDATE inside /PSP/GAME/ and place the EBOOT.PBP file from the 1.50 update inside this UPDATE folder. So you will have X:/PSP/GAME/UPDATE/EBOOT.PBP.

Step 3: Unzip MPHDowngrader.zip that you downloaded in step 1a. Take the file overflow.tif and put into your /PSP/PHOTO/ folder. Put both h.bin and index.dat in the root of your Memory Stick. This is the first section of your memory stick you see when you first open your memory stick. Put them there.

Step 4: Disconnect your PSP from your computer and plug in the AC adapter.

Step 5: Navigate to Photo then Memory Stick via the PSP's menu system and start scrolling down through your photos until you reach the overflow.tif picture. You'll know you've hit it when everything freezes and you get a black screen with a bunch of white text output. If your PSP freezes without going to this black text screen, then hold the power button for about 10 seconds until the PSP shuts down, then hit the power button again to start it back up. Repeat this step until you get that black screen.

Step 6: Don't panic. Hold the power button for about 10 seconds until the PSP powers off. Hit the power button again. Your PSP will start up, and if you navigate to your System Information, you'll discover that your PSP thinks it is running version 1.0 of the firmware. It isn't and you cannot run homebrew (yet).

Step 7: Navigate to Game-->Memory Stick, hit the X button, and navigate to the 1.5 updater. Make sure you have your PSP plugged in or the upgrade won't work. Click the X button and update like you normally would. At the end of the upgrade you will receive an error saying that the upgrade failed and to contact Sony. Don't panic. Ignore this and again force your PSP to power off and reboot.

Step 8: After the PSP reboots you will receive an error screen that is scary and confusing because it is in multiple languages. Don't panic. Find the language you can understand and read the corresponding line. It notes that your preferences are fragged and that you need only hit the O button to restore some default-ish settings. Hit the O button.

Step 9: The PSP will start back up and you will go through the initial setup like the day when you first bought your PSP. Do so and then go to the system info pane again, where you will see that you are rocking version 1.5.

NEXT STEP: Now you're on 1.50 FW you'll want to upgrade to the latest custom firmware. To do this, go to this guide here (GUIDE: How to use Hellcats Recovery Flasher). Follow scenario 1.

The Xbox 360 GPU

2010-06-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

The Xbox 360 GPU

While Microsoft's focus on the CPU was efficiency, with the Xbox 360's GPU, it pulled out all the stops. Designed by ATI, Microsoft controls the IP of the GPU; meaning, Microsoft can manufacture and do what it wishes with Xenos (although we're assuming that they can't stick it on graphics cards and start selling it to the public).
The GPU also acts as a North Bridge in the system, but we'll get to that role a little later. Like the Xbox 360 CPU, we've talked about the GPU in great detail in the past, but we'll briefly go over the highlights here.

The buzzword that was around the Xbox 360 GPU's announcement was of course, its use of a Unified Shader Architecture. Modern day PC GPUs feature separate pixel and vertex shader units, which are collections of execution units and associated logic to handle pixel shader and vertex shader instructions. The Xbox 360's GPU features a single set of execution units and logic that can execute both pixel and vertex shader instructions. The benefit of a unified shader architecture is greater efficiency, as we mentioned in our original piece on it: "The unified shader architecture that ATI chose to use in their Xbox 360 GPU allows them to pack more functionality onto fewer transistors as less hardware needs to be duplicated for use in different parts of the chip and will run both vertex and shader programs on the same hardware."

There are 48 shader units in the Xbox 360 GPU, but given that we're dealing with a unified shader architecture, you can't compare that number directly to the 24 shader pipelines of the GeForce 7800 GTX for example. We roughly estimated the shader processing power of the Xbox 360 GPU to be similar to that of a 24-pipeline ATI R420 GPU.
The other big feature of the Xbox 360 GPU is its dual die construction. The 332 million transistor GPU is split into two separate dice, the larger of which looks like a conventional GPU, and then a smaller die (aka daughter die) that is a 10MB block of embedded DRAM (eDRAM) combined with the hardware necessary for z and stencil operations, color and alpha processing, and anti aliasing. The daughter die connects to the larger die via a 32GB/s on-package interconnect.
The logic and embedded DRAM on the daughter die is what allows the Xbox 360 GPU to essentially offer "free" anti-aliasing, which Microsoft enforces through requiring developers to support a minimum of 2X AA in all Xbox 360 titles. Although we were originally told back at E3 that all Xbox 360 titles would support 4X AA, it seems that the statement has since been revised to 2X or 4X AA. We're not certain why the change was made, as 2X and 4X are both effectively "free" on the GPU, but there may be something we're missing.

On a smaller manufacturing process, the dice could be unified, as they are only separated right now in order to improve yields. Impressively enough, the GPU is cooled by a fairly low profile heatsink, with the two rear case fans in the Xbox 360 providing all the airflow over the heatsink's fins.

For a more in-depth look at the Xbox 360's GPU, head over to our original coverage of the architecture back at E3.

Backwards Compatibility

With a completely different CPU ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) and a GPU from a different manufacturer the Xbox 360 is a very different beast than the original Xbox, thus backwards compatibility had to be done via software emulation.
Microsoft recently announced the 212 original Xbox titles that would be backwards compatible on the Xbox 360 at launch, you can view the entire list here. In order to take advantage of the backwards compatibility you need to have the removable hard drive attached to the Xbox, as a software patch will have to be downloaded from Microsoft's servers. The download process will happen automatically and you will be alerted if the title you're attempting to play does not yet have a patch available for it.

HDTV Support

With the Xbox 360, Microsoft hopes to usher in the era of HD gaming, first and foremost by requiring all Xbox 360 games to support 720p (1280 x 720). Unfortunately, we have yet to hear from Microsoft if this means that all games must be internally rendered at 1280 x 720 or if they can be rendered at a lower resolution and upscaled later on. There have been discussions involving at least one Xbox 360 game (Project Gotham Racing 3), rendering internally at a lower resolution and having the Xbox 360's TV encoder upscale it to 720p.
You don't have to have a HDTV, but obviously owning one will give you better overall image quality. The Xbox 360 supports all of the most popular video formats: 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i.

There is no out of box DVI or HDMI support, nor is there any Microsoft support for either of those video interface standards at this time, although Microsoft has indicated that they may offer HDMI support when it makes sense to. There is, however, an optical output, but the cable is not included.
If you don't have a HDTV but you have a VGA monitor that you'd like to use, Microsoft does offer a VGA cable that will allow you to connect your Xbox 360 to a VGA monitor. If you don't have a HDTV or a monitor but still want a higher quality output, Microsoft also offers a S-Video AV cable.

Source : Anandtech[dot]Com

Xenon vs. Cell

2010-06-11T10:10:00.001-07:00

Xenon vs. Cell

The first public game demo on the PlayStation 3 was Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 at Sony’s PS3 press conference. Tim Sweeney, the founder and UE3 father of Epic, performed the demo and helped shed some light on how multi-threading can work on the PlayStation 3.
According to Tim, a lot of things aren’t appropriate for SPE acceleration in UE3, mainly high-level game logic, artificial intelligence and scripting. But he adds that “Fortunately these comprise a small percentage of total CPU time on a traditional single-threaded architecture, so dedicating the CPU to those tasks is appropriate, while the SPE's and GPU do their thing."
So what does Tim Sweeney see the SPEs being used for in UE3? "With UE3, our focus on SPE acceleration is on physics, animation updates, particle systems, sound; a few other areas are possible but require more experimentation."
Tim’s view on the PPE/SPE split in Cell is far more balanced than most we’ve encountered. There are many who see the SPEs as utterly useless for executing anything (we’ll get to why in a moment), while there are others who have been talking about doing far too much on SPEs where the general purpose PPE would do much better.

For the most part, the areas that UE3 uses the Cell’s SPEs for are fairly believable. For example, sound processing makes a lot of sense for the SPEs given their rather specialized architecture aimed at streaming tasks. But the one curious item is the focus on using SPEs to accelerate physics calculations, especially given how branch heavy physics calculations generally are.
Collision detection is a big part of what is commonly referred to as “game physics.” As the name implies, collision detection simply refers to the game engine determining when two objects collide. Without collision detection, bullets would never hit your opponents and your character would be able to walk through walls, cars, etc... among other things.
One method of implementing collision detection in a game is through the use of a Binary Search Partitioning (BSP) tree. BSP trees are created by organizing lists of polygons into a binary tree. The structure of the tree itself doesn’t matter to this discussion, but the important thing to keep in mind is that to traverse a BSP tree in order to test for a collision between some object and a polygon in the tree you have to perform a lot of comparisons. You first traverse the tree finding to find the polygon you want to test for a collision against. Then you have to perform a number of checks to see whether a collision has occurred between the object you’re comparing and the polygon itself. This process involves a lot of conditional branching, code which likes to be run on a high performance OoO core with a very good branch predictor.
Unfortunately, the SPEs have no branch prediction, so BSP tree traversal will tie up an SPE for quite a bit of time while not performing very well as each branch condition has to be evaluated before execution can continue. However it is possible to structure collision detection for execution on the SPEs, but it would require a different approach to the collision detection algorithms than what would be normally implemented on a PC or Xbox 360.
We’re still working on providing examples of how it is actually done, but it’s tough getting access to detailed information at this stage given that a number of NDAs are still in place involving Cell development for the PS3. Regardless of how it is done, obviously the Epic team found the SPEs to be a good match for their physics code, if structured properly, meaning that the Cell processor isn’t just one general purpose core with 7 others that go unused.
In fact, if properly structured and coded for SPE acceleration, physics code could very well run faster on the PlayStation 3 than on the Xbox 360 thanks to the more specialized nature of the SPE hardware. Not to mention that physics acceleration is particularly parallelizable, making it a perfect match for an array of 7 SPEs.
Microsoft has referred to the Cell’s array of SPEs as a bunch of DSPs useless to game developers. The fact that the next installment of the Unreal engine will be using the Cell’s SPEs for physics, animation updates, particle systems as well as audio processing means that Microsoft’s definition is a bit off. While not all developers will follow in Epic’s footsteps, those that wish to remain competitive and get good performance out of the PS3 will have to.
The bottom line is that Sony would not foolishly spend over 75% of their CPU die budget on SPEs to use them for nothing more than fancy DSPs. Architecting a game engine around Cell and optimizing for SPE acceleration will take more effort than developing for the Xbox 360 or PC, but it can be done. The question then becomes, will developers do it?
In Johan’s Quest for More Processing Power series he looked at the developmental limitations of multi-threading, especially as they applied to games. The end result is that multi-threaded game development takes between 2 and 3 times longer than conventional single-threaded game development, to add additional time in order to restructure elements of your engine to get better performance on the PS3 isn’t going to make the transition any easier on developers.

The Xbox 360 CPU

2010-06-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

The Xbox 360 CPU

The original Xbox used a hybrid mobile Pentium III/Celeron processor, but for the 360 Microsoft went to IBM and got the rights to a PowerPC core. The move to the PowerPC instruction set meant that there would be no direct binary compatibility with older Xbox titles, but the sacrifice was obviously deemed necessary by Microsoft.
The CPU itself features three of these PowerPC cores and is currently manufactured on a 90nm process, however Microsoft will most likely be transitioning to 65nm as soon as possible in order to reduce the die size and thus manufacturing costs. Remember that a die shrink from 90nm down to 65nm will cut the size of the CPU in half, and should be possible for Microsoft sometime before the end of next year.

All three cores are identical and feature a 2-issue pipeline and can only execute instructions in-order; we've already discussed the reasoning behind this decision here. The impact of the in-order execution cores is generally a negative one on current game code, but by going with a much simpler core Microsoft was able to stick three of them on a die with hopes of making up for lost performance by enabling some pretty serious multithreading.
Not only does the Xbox 360's CPU feature 3 cores, but each core is capable of executing two threads at the same time, making the CPU capable of simultaneously executing 6 threads. Unfortunately, most titles appear to be only using one or two threads for the majority of their game code, with the remaining threads being used for things like audio encoding/decoding, real-time decompression of game data off of the DVD-ROM and video decoding.
Microsoft has their own license to use and manufacture the CPU used in the Xbox 360, and thus we see their logo on the chip itself. Microsoft cools the 3-core CPU using a fairly beefy heatsink outfitted with heatpipes (pictured below):

Airflow is supplied by the two rear fans in the Xbox 360; the air is channeled over the GPU and CPU heatsinks using a duct. The larger heatsink on the right is atop the CPU, the smaller heatsink is for the GPU:

We have previously discussed the Xbox 360's CPU in much greater detail, which you can read about here.

Source : Anandtech[dot]Com

Introducing the Xbox 360's Xenon CPU

2010-06-11T10:07:00.001-07:00

Introducing the Xbox 360's Xenon CPU

The Xenon processor was designed from the ground up to be a 3-core CPU, so unlike Cell, there are no disabled cores on the Xenon chip itself in order to improve yield. The reason for choosing 3 cores is because it provides a good balance between thread execution power and die size. According to Microsoft's partners, the sweet spot for this generation of consoles will be between 4 and 6 execution threads, which is where the 3-core CPU came from.
The chip is built on a 90nm process, much like Cell, and will run at 3.2GHz - also like Cell. All of the cores are identical to one another, and they are very similar to the PPE used in the Cell microprocessor, with a few modifications.

The focus of Microsoft's additions to the core has been in the expansion of the VMX instruction set. In particular, Microsoft now includes a single cycle dot-product instruction as a part of the VMX-128 ISA that is implemented on each core. Microsoft has stated that there is nothing stopping IBM from incorporating this support into other chips, but as of yet we have not seen anyone from the Cell camp claim support for single cycle dot-products on the PPE.
The three cores share a meager 1MB L2 cache, which should be fine for single threaded games but as developers migrate more to multi-threaded engines, this small cache will definitely become a performance limiter. With each core being able to execute two threads simultaneously, you effectively have a worst case scenario of 6 threads splitting a 1MB L2 cache. As a comparison, the current dual core Pentium 4s have a 1MB L2 cache per core and that number is only expected to rise in the future.
The most important selling point of the Xbox 360's Xenon core is the fact that all three cores are identical, and they are all general purpose microprocessors. The developer does not have to worry about multi-threading beyond the point of getting their code to be thread safe; once it is multi-threaded, it can easily be run on any of the cores. The other important thing to keep in mind here is that porting between multi-core PC platforms and the Xbox 360 will be fairly trivial. Anywhere any inline assembly is used there will obviously have to be changes, but with relatively minor code changes and some time optimizing, code portability between the PC and the Xbox 360 shouldn't be very difficult at all. For what it is worth, porting game code between the PC and the Xbox 360 will be a lot like Mac developers porting code between Mac OS X for Intel platforms and PowerPC platforms: there's an architecture switch, but the programming model doesn't change much.
The same cannot however be said for Cell and the PlayStation 3. The easiest way to port code from the Xbox 360 to the PS3 would be to run the code exclusively on the Cell's single PPE, which obviously wouldn't offer very good performance for heavily multi-threaded titles. But with a some effort, the PlayStation 3 does have a lot of potential.

Removing the Heatsinks from the Motherboard

2010-06-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

Removing the Heatsinks from the Motherboard

Removing the heatsinks from the GPU and the CPU will require a great deal of patience as to avoid damaging the motherboard. Flip over the Xbox 360's motherboard. You will see two X clamps grasping the ends of the screws that hold the heatsinks into place. Without removing the X clamps, you cannot remove the heatsinks. Microsoft has done a clever job in terms of securing the unit from prying eyes and removing the heatsinks from the Xbox 360 can be a trick for a lot of people.

Take a pair of small pliers and gently pry off each corner of the clamps. After two corners have been lifted, the rest of the clamp springs loose and can easily be removed by hand. Once both X plates have been removed, you can turn the motherboard over and simply pull the heatsinks off to reveal the GPUs (two dice on the chip) and CPUs (single die, 3 cores on the chip).

You now have a fully disassembled Xbox 360.

Source : Anandtech[dot]Com

Disassembling the Xbox 360 HDD unit

2010-06-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Disassembling the Xbox 360 HDD unit

The Xbox 360's HDD unit only currently comes if you purchase the $399 Xbox 360 system. For those who purchase the core system, no hard drive is included. However, if you are interested in finding out just exactly what Microsoft has offered in terms of storage, the following are instructions on how to disassemble the Xbox 360's HDD module.
Start off by first removing the HDD unit from the Xbox 360 main console and lay it flat with the connector side facing upwards. You will see 3 screws. The 4th screw is located underneath the silver "Microsoft" sticker -- removing this sticker instantly voids your HDD unit's warranty.

Once you have removed all 4 screws, lift up the plastic cover while being careful that it is latched onto the button-release end of the unit. You'll want to be careful as not to pop the spring loaded
button and lose the tiny spring.

Once open, you will see the 2.5" Serial ATA notebook hard drive encased in a metal shell. Lift off the cover of the protective shell by first removing the four black screws holding it down. To proceed further you will need to have a thin knife. The metal casing is attached to the plastic shell by a very strong adhesive, and to remove the actual hard drive from the housing, you must first pry off the plastic shell from the metallic HD casing. Simply insert a thin knife and slowly "saw" away at the adhesive. Shortly after you will be left with the following:

Once this is done, you can simply remove the attached Serial ATA data cable from the HD and slide out the drive.

Microsoft previously used a regular 3.5 inch desktop drive in the old Xbox but this time has chosen a smaller unit that is separate from the main console. We're quite certain that this move allows them to offer upgrades for those who want to add more storage capacity to their systems as upgrades become available. Currently, the HDD that ships with the Xbox 360 Premium package is a 20GB drive running at 5400RPM. The drive is manufactured by Samsung although it isn't listed on their website as it is an OEM drive for the Xbox 360. The drive itself uses a standard Serial ATA connector (both data cable and power cable) so attaching other drives or the Xbox 360 drive to a computer for data transfer is very possible.

Source : Anandtech[dot]com

Disassembling the Internals of the Xbox 360

2010-06-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

Disassembling the Internals of the Xbox 360

To continue further, you will need to first remove the DVD drive. Simply hold the drive and lift up. You will notice that the Xbox 360's DVD drive uses a Serial ATA interface which keeps things very tidy compared to the original Xbox. At this point, remove both the power supply cable and Serial ATA cable from the DVD drive and then from the motherboard.

The fan shroud can now be removed by simply twisting the cover until it pops off. The shroud is held in place by one clamp that attaches to the actual fans. Just be careful at this point not to break the clamp.

Next, remove the RF unit at the front of the Xbox 360 by removing the small black torx screws using a T6 screwdriver. Then you must remove the plastic cover on the front of the RF unit by unlatching the top and bottom of the plastic cover. Once you have done this, you will reveal the third screw holding the RF unit to the chassis. Remove the last screw and pull out the RF unit. Lastly, remove the power connections for the fans. You can now lift the motherboard out of the metal chassis.

Inside Microsoft's Xbox 360

2010-06-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

What's in the Box, in the Box? (Taking it Apart)

Microsoft has shown the world that it's very swift when it comes to recovering from errors that it has made. With the original Xbox design, Microsoft was definitely testing new ground and thus had little experience when it came to protecting its intellectual property and hardware. The original Xbox was largely easy to open by most people with the most common of tools and was quickly adopted by the modding community as the ultimate "utility" console.
In an attempt to circumvent those with modified Xboxes, Microsoft added security and authentication features to its Xbox Live service that would detect whether an Xbox was in its original form or not. But the mod community did not sit idle and not long after, mod chips were introduced that were able to switch on and off between original BIOS mode and "modified" BIOS mode.
Microsoft has clearly announced to the public that it has designed the Xbox 360 from the ground up to thwart those who want to crack open the case -- even simply for a look inside. They have stated that the unit will be screwless (partially true) and be extremely difficult to disassemble -- unfortunately only partially true.
With a few simple tools we were able to disassemble the entire unit, removing every component from the system without any damage. If you plan to take apart your Xbox 360 -- and we must warn that doing so will void your warranty immediately -- the following tools are needed:

Three torx screw drivers in the following sizes: T6, T7 and T12
One small flat head screw driver or small and thin wedge
A 2 inch long and thin (roughly 1.5mm thick) metal stick
A 2 inch long and flat (less than 1mm thick) plastic or metal stick
A pair of thin pliers

With those tools in hand, we're ready to disassemble the Xbox 360.

Removing the Outer Shell

The first step is to remove the outer plastic shell that conceals the innards of the system. To do this, you must start by removing the face plate. Take a look at the front of the Xbox 360 and insert your thumb into the door that covers the two USB ports on the right of the unit. With your other hand squeezing the upper and lower sides of the face plate, pull out the face plate with your thumb. With not much force, the face plate should pop right off.

After the face plate has been pulled off you will see a silver Microsoft sticker covering a gap; remove this. You will also see four small clips locking the top half of the plastic shell to the bottom half. Do not attempt to wedge the clips out at this point.
With some care, gently bend outwards, the right gray ventilation shield on the right side of the unit so that you can see a bit inside. You will notice that the gray side piece attaches to both the bottom and top white chassis. Now look through the holes on top of the unit to locate the areas where the gray side pieces attaches to the white body. What you need to do is take the long but thin metal stick and push down, through the white holes (located on both the top and bottom of the Xbox 360) where the clips of the gray side pieces connect. Slowly pull out the gray pieces away from the unit while unlocking the clips and eventually the gray piece will release itself.

To remove the left gray piece, you must first remove the hard drive unit by pressing the button located on the unit itself. Then apply the same procedure used to remove the right gray ventilation piece -- except when you reach the bottom clip of the piece, you most remove the rubber feet located directly below, to reveal a hole where you can insert the metal stick.
Once you have both side gray pieces removed, you have essentially removed the main locking mechanism that holds the top and bottom shells together. At this point, return to the front of the unit and turn the entire unit upside down. Using a flat head screw driver or wedge, gently pry up the 4 clips holding the top shell to the bottom. Once the clips are unlatched, slowly lift up the front of the bottom shell about an inch.

The last step to removing the bottom shell cover is to insert a thin and small plastic stick into the thin rectangular holes on the rear. The reason the front of the bottom shell needs to be lifted is to prevent the rear latches from reattaching themselves. Slowly insert the stick into each rectangular opening. You should hear a click sound for each clamp you unlatch. Once complete, you may lift off the bottom shell covering.
Looking inside the unit, you will notice that there are 14 silver screws (6 of which are long) and 8 black screws. Using your torx screw drivers, remove the silver screws using a size T12 screw driver and the black ones using a size T7. Once you have all the screws removed, flip the Xbox 360 right side up and lift up the top plastic shell. You should now be greeted with the internals of the Xbox 360.

Source : Anandtech[dot]Com

XBOX

2010-06-11T03:28:00.000-07:00

The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and the Nintendo GameCube. The integrated Xbox Live service allowed players to compete online.
The Xbox was discontinued in late 2006, although the final Xbox game, Madden NFL 09 was released in August 2008. Support for out-of-warranty Xbox consoles was discontinued on March 2, 2009; any in-warranty repair now needed will not be undertaken and faulty consoles will replaced with an Xbox 360 instead. Xbox Live support was discontinued on April 15, 2010.

About PSP-3000

2010-06-11T02:51:00.000-07:00

The PSP-3000 is the redesigned version of Sony's popular PlayStation Portable. The first PSP-1000 was followed by the PSP Slim&Lite (PSP-2000) announced during E3 2007. The PSP-3000 is an even slicker version of the PSP Slim&Lite, it was announced during Sony's Leipzig Games Convention press conference.

The PSP-3000 looks almost exactly the same like the PSP-2000 Slim&Lite, but this new version of the PlayStation Portable has a built-in microphone and a better screen. The screen of the PSP-3000 is able to resist glare, so it will work better outdoors. The built-in microphone can be used for applications like Skype for PSP or for online gaming via Infrastructure.

The Video-Out feature has also been enhanced, the PSP-3000 is able to interlace with televisions that don't support a progressive output. Now you can use your PSP-3000 on non-HDTV's as well. The PSP-3000 will be released on October 15th in Europe and will be sold for €199.