ProgSkeet PS3 Hardware Flasher Project is Announced

[PS3 News]

Below are some pics and a ProgSkeet review from French site L-S: logic-sunrise.com/news-327205-review-ls-le-progskeet-est-arrive-chez-nous.html

To quote, roughly translated: LS Team is pleased to present a new review of products for your changes to consoles. Today we will test the promising ProgSkeet, as we already reported in our news

We will start with a small reminder: ProgSkeet is a program to dump all the flash and flash memory (NAND / NOR), so for us it will be more designed for Xbox 360, Wii, PS3 already supported. The team said that other devices will be supported later as satellite receivers dreambox. So this will allow you to retrieve an image or flash memory of your console, but also debricker your console or to the Dual-NAND.

This kind of product already exists but ProgSkeet Team put forward a speed unmatched dump before. We will now see if the team has delivered.




The progskeet comes Ready To Use, and is already programmed but is easily updatable via Injectus or Proflash 3 (support JTAG programming cables should also be created) for future updates to the microcontroller. At first sight, one notices that the progskeet is a quality product that is not at all "cheap" with its almost 2mm PCB and solder treated.



Like any device connecting to the PC, install the drivers available on the official site, nothing complicated.






We must now verify that your ProgSkeet works well for this, we use the software and we do UF6667 "test shorts."



If you have "No Short found! Device Properly working" brand, your controller is functional and the drivers are installed correctly.



You can now start the welds. To do this, you use the charts provided by the Team, I have done the test on an xbox.





Now connect your PC to your Progskeet powered console and click a NAND. You should see the ID down with XXXX XXXX changed the ID of your NAND. In my case, a Jasper 512 is a Samsung nand with ID EC DC 10 95 54.



We must now choose what you want to dump, you can retrieve the information in the manufacturers datasheet, just look at the reference of the chip and do a google search. I put what it takes to set up Xbox.

    16MB
    [] Big block [x] Raw
    Pages per Block: 32
    Block Count: 1024

    256MB
    [X] Big block [x] Raw
    Pages per Block: 64
    Block Count: 2048

    512
    [X] Big block [x] Raw
    Pages per Block: 64
    Block Count: 4096

After just under 10 minutes, my 512MB nand was dumped, can be seen at an average speed of 0.88mo / s. For comparison, to dump a module with 16MB USB SPI whatever, it takes more than 6min ...



So we can say that at speed, there is no photo ... the team has clearly delivered on its promise.



Now a little more balance with the lowest for the 360:

Cons:

• More welds a USB SPI.
• We must completely disassemble the CM to access the spot welds in the CM.

Pros:

• The speed is almost the dump when a 512MB USB spinnaker in 16 dump ...

Acknowledgements:

• Team ProgSkeet for their sample.
• UF6667 for its soft and help.

[PS3 News]

Below are some more ProgSkeet Diagram updates.

ProgSkeet Diagram and Flasher Changelog: 08/04/11

• Updated VER-001
• Added 80 GB (taken from twitter of PHIRENZ)

ProgSkeet Diagram and Flasher Changelog: 08/05/11

• Updated DIA-001 and added JSD-001, DYN-001... next update includes 2 or 3 more

Also from uf6667 (twitter.com/uf6667/status/99504102089830400) comes an updated NorUnpack (pastebin.cc/index.php?show=60) to support ProgSkeet dumps - Usage: "./norunpack <dump> <dir> 1"

    // Copyright 2010       Sven Peter <svenpeter@gmail.com>
    // Licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL, version 2
    // http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt
     
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <string.h>
    #include <stdlib.h>
    #include <sys/stat.h>
    #include <unistd.h>
    #include "tools.h"
     
    static u8 *nor = NULL;
     
    static void new_dir(const char *n)
    {
            mkdir(n, 0777);
     
            if (chdir(n) < 0)
                    fail("chdir");
    }
     
    static void do_toc(u8 *ptr)
    {
            u32 n_entries;
            u32 i;
            u8 *p;
            u8 *tmp;
            u64 size;
            char name[0x20];
     
            n_entries = be32(ptr + 0x04);
            p = ptr + 0x10;
     
            for(i = 0; i < n_entries; i++) {
                    memcpy(name, p + 16, 0x20);
     
                    if (strncmp(name, "asecure_loader", 0x20) == 0) {
                            new_dir("asecure_loader");
                            do_toc(ptr + be64(p));
                            if (chdir("..") < 0)
                                    fail("chdir(..)");
                    } else if (strncmp(name, "ros", 3) == 0) {
                            new_dir(name);
                            do_toc(ptr + be64(p) + 0x10);
                            if (chdir("..") < 0)
                                    fail("chdir(..)");
                    } else {
                            tmp = ptr + be64(p);
                            size = be64(p + 0x08);
                            if (be32(tmp + 0x10) == 0x53434500) {
                                    tmp += 0x10;
                                    size -= 0x10;
                            }
     
                            memcpy_to_file(name, tmp, size);
                    }
                    p += 0x30;
            }
    }
     
    static void modifyimage(u8 *ptr)
    {
            u32 i;
            u8 temp;
            for(i=0; i<16777216; i+=2)
            {
                    temp = *(ptr+i);
                    *(ptr+i) = *(ptr+i+1);
                    *(ptr+i+1) = temp;
            }
    }
     
    int main(int argc, char *argv[])
    {
            if (argc < 3)
                    fail("usage: norunpack dump.b directory [byteswap]");
     
            nor = mmap_file(argv[1]);
           
            new_dir(argv[2]);
            if(argc > 3)
                    modifyimage(nor);
     
            do_toc(nor + 0x400);
     
            return 0;
    }

ProgSkeet Flasher Changelog 08/07/11:

• The comboboxes are bigger now, can't be edited and show the values with a scrollbar.
• Made the NAND part idiot proof. Enjoy.

ProgSkeet Flasher Changelog 08/08/11:

• It seems there are problems in Windows 7 and since I don't have Win7, please find the log file in C:\ProgSkeet.log and put it on pastebin.cc so I can take a look... thanks!

ProgSkeet Flasher Changelog 08/11/11:

• NOR: Rewrote entire NOR driver. NAND is unmodified.
• NOR: Write-To-Buffer Programming method optimized (added timeout) Note: not every device supports this. Please consult the datasheet if you are facing problems.
• NOR: Erase Sector optimized (added timeout)
• NOR: Forced verify and differential flash
• NOR: Can't enter values anymore, thanks to RAIDEN (if only some people could read...)

Note: Some NOR flash devices have bad sectors (usually just a few bytes, but enough for entire systems not to work). These will be reported in C:\ProgSkeet.log If you have such a device (for example, I heard this happens with RSOD on PS3), you should relocate the sectors to somewhere else or replace the NOR flash device.

110811-A:

• NOR: Fixed fault in timeout of programming/erasing. Also increased it to 3.5seconds per line and per sector.

110811-B:

• NOR: Added wait on erase sector.

110811-C:

• Improved flashing speed

110811-D:

• Added "tries" for flashing. It is currently hard-coded to 5 tries.

[PS3 News]

More ProgSkeet PS3 Updates and Changelogs below:

110812:

• Removed auto-detect NAND because some devices don't give the correct information
• Removed device combobox (for now, until xml configuration is correctly implemented)

110812-A:

• Bug fixed: 16 bytes on NAND2 when using Big Block (normal is 64 bytes) (thanks to dospiedras )

110813:

• Diagram by marcan has wrong #NOR_TRI... this is why it either took long or even froze. Won't happen again (it's active-high, not active-low)

110814:

• Minor adjustments in the GUI to improve speed on NAND.

110815:

• NOR: added "Alternate Writing Method"... only use this if the flasher freezes without it checked... Thing is, this is supported by most (if not all) NOR flash devices out there BUT requires 4 cycles per write, so it *MAY* be slow.

110816:

• NOR: several things related to sector count were messed due to start/end sector, should be functional now
• NOR: Optimized the code just a little bit more, getting on average 15kB/s more
• GUI: Whole thing with speeds and time left fixed

110819:

• NOR: verification is only done if "verify" is checked and only after it's done flashing
• NOR: added "ByteSwap" so you don't have to use any additional app to reverse the bytes - goes for dump and flash (for transplanet v1 but you can also use the unaltered version of norunpack this way)
• Logging: moved the log file to the application directory so you don't need admin rights

Notes:

• if you're using 16MByte SAMSUNG NOR, please use Sector Size: 4kB/ Sector Count: 4096 and check "alternate writing method".
• Differential flash, if you haven't noticed yet, will skip unnecessary writes (compares data on chip vs data in file)

[PS3 News]

This weekend the http://www.progskeet.com/ has made available a video demonstrating the ProgSkeet PS3 Solderless and Dual NAND Kit Tools alongside details below.

To quote: We are happy to introduce you the SOLDERLESS KITS for our ProgSkeet device!

The main word is “BE FLEXIBLE” as ProgSkeet project will be the BEST TOOLKIT for the NAND and NOR flashing!!! We present today the NAND TOOL KITS, in few days we will be ready also with NOR TOOL KITS!!! Stay Tuned

1 - PROGSKEET is 100% PIN to PIN compatible with the SOCKET tool sold from this site http://www.360-clip.com

Just connect the ProgSkeet 32 pin special flat cable. (please note that this version don’t support programming or reading with out the device is powered on. A new version will be released with the VCC pad to manage NANDS with a self power provided from PROGSKEET) 360-clip.com and also us we will offer this socket in a package together with the 20 cm 32 PIN flat cable.

2 - ADAPTOR PCB: This pcb is an adaptor from 50PIN ZIF PROGSKEET CONNECTOR (necessary for the coming “NOR SOCKET” solderless tools) to 2 x 32 PIN ZIF connector. With this adaptor progskeet is able to manage 2 NANDS on the DEVICE and also extra 2x SECONDARY NANDS (for dual nand feature). The kit include the 50 pin flat cable from PROGSKEET to ADAPTOR PCB.

3 - NAND PCB: This “optional” pcb has a 1Gbit NAND flash on board. Progkseet is able to use it like a backup nand or switch this nand and use it instead the NAND on the board of the device. The feature called “DUAL NAND” allow to support different NANDs ONLINE and test firmwares in a easy fast way. The software will be ready soon to support this feature, user can also attach a switch to progskeet to allow a fast selection of the NANDs without using the PC tool.

Progskeet support max 2 x NAND PCB on each ADAPTOR PCB, the kit include a 32 PIN 3CM flat cable (from NAND PCB to NAND SOCKET)

You can see a FULL PROGSKEET KIT SAMPLE where is clear how is the complete kit with 2x NANDS PCB and 2x NANDS SOCKETS (on the picture miss one socket sorry J ) but I think the concept is clear.

The big advantage of PROGSKEET is that can work on ANY CONSOLE / DEVICE, is study to be MODULAR and so is MUCH CHEAPER then any other solution that is specific addressed to a device.

The nice special FLAT CABLES are also easy to be fitted inside the device without bit problems, and also the KIT is removable in few minutes and is not PERMANENT.

We remember that PROGSKEET is an OPEN PROJECT study to be used in many kind of devices CONSOLES, SATELLITE, IPHONES, PENDRIVERS etc etc. “PROGSKEET NOTHING MORE THAN A GOOD NAND / NOR PROGRAMMER”.

We will send tomorrow more infos and pictures regarding PROGSKEET V1.1 “CRYSTAL BLUE LIMITED EDITION” in production in these days and available in the market soon!

Nice news also about the PROGSKEET software, that now support new nice features.

BYE FOR NOW

More PlayStation 3 News...

[elser1]

mad.. i can't wait to get one of these.

[HeyManHRU]

So this supports dual firmware? If it does I'll probably get this instead of the E3 since it's cheaper.

[SwordOfWar]

Can't wait until we get our hands on these so we can finally test and see if we can easily swap between OFW and CFW.

Hopefully on the same HDD without data loss. Otherwise, I'll keep the original 80GB drive for OFW use.

[elser1]

yeah i think i'll get this rather than the e3 as well.. i rarely use my jb ps3 any more anyways but i like trying out these things and getting them going.

[Ezio]

Great solderless solution, so all guys can use it! The author of progskeet said his tool would become solderless.

[HeyManHRU]

Yep, makes it easy for people like me who can't solder for crap.