Need some PS3 CFW advice help?

[KareemOWheat]

Ok, I'm planning on getting a new PS3, but want to make sure I can load CFW on it for the purpose of running game backups and other homebrew applications. As I understand I need a PS3 with a OFW no higher than 3.55 to load the available custom firmware.

My questions are as follows;

If I cant find a PS3 with firmware lower than 3.55 are there any options for CFW that don't involve soldering?

Thanks in advance for the help! I tried searching the forums for a concrete answer to my queries, but I got lots of conflicting info. Sorry if I'm coming off quite noobish.

[PS3 News]

The most common PS3 CFW options are posted HERE for consoles 3.55 and below, should you not be able to find a used one locally or online (hard to believe) then you can always post in our PS3 Marketplace section and someone such as racer0018 will be able to downgrade it for you.

I had to edit your post to comply with our rules though, we don't allow "where to buy" here as we don't want a forum full of spam links... so your best bet is to check Google, Amazon, Ebay, etc.

[hilongo]

Hi there mate... If you cannot find a PS3 with a OFW lower than 3.5, then you are out of luck. There is no way to downgrade a OFW greater than 3.55 without a hardware flasher. Maybe the conflicting info comes around the fact that, if you have 3.55 CFW, now you can upgrade it to various 4.x CFW.. and then go back to your 3.55 ... but that's not the case with 4.x OFW

Cheers and good luck!

[KareemOWheat]

Thanks for the quick responses, looks like I'm off to ebay then!