How to downgrade a PS4: complete tutorial by Modded Warfare – Wololo.net

The Modded Warfare scene youtubeur has published an impressive tutorial video where he details a complete downgrade of his PS4. In the video, the youtube goes from 6.72 to 10.01, then downgrades from 10.01 to 6.72.

PS4 downgrade. Important Notes and Disclaimer (Seriously Read This First!)

Now, to be extremely clear: this is nothing new or revolutionary at this point, and a key point is that you can only revert to firmware for which you have created a backup (of your own console). Also, the initial save is much easier to create if your console is jailbroken, although it’s also possible to do it on a “normal” console.

So, in other words, if you are on an unhackable firmware (e.g. 10.01 at the time of writing) and are hoping this will allow you to downgrade your console to jailbreakable firmware the answer is no unless you have done the preparatory work at some point where your console was jailbreakable.

From my point of view, this means that the guide will most likely be useless for the vast majority of people who find it, usually too late. However, it has enormous value for several reasons. First of all, I’m not sure there was such a detailed (and well done!) guide on how to do this until now. Second, we keep saying on this blog that downgrading a PS4 is “technically possible, but…“, so it will now be possible to easily refer to the video of MW to explain why it is at best difficult, and in most cases impossible. As Modded Warfare mentions, it might also have some value for people who are “stuck” on non-Jailbreakable firmware, but want to update to the latest and greatest so they can play online. These people can make a backup of their current firmware (in hopes that it will eventually be jailbreakable) and then update to the latest firmware. Last but not least, it might actually pave the way for easier downgrade methods at some point, especially if some ambitious modders attempt to work on modchip solutions that don’t involve any soldering.

With all of the above said, assuming you want to back up your PS4 so you can “easily” upgrade to a newer firmware and then revert to a jailbroken console later, here’s my honest advice:

Buy a second PS4 and don’t try to follow this downgrade guide.

Listen, I’m not kidding, having two PS4s is probably a much safer idea than attempting a downgrade, and unless you already have the necessary hardware, it could also be cheaper. (Give or take, there’s about $200 worth of hardware you need to own/buy for the downgrade). This might change in the future if the process becomes easier, or if there are significant reasons to come and go (unbrick, for example), but for now, downgrading a PS4 is extremely difficult with significant risks of permanently bricking the console, and is more of a technically impressive thing than a useful or profitable thing..

That being said, if you want to stick around for the technically fascinating video or personal knowledge, you might be the right audience for that. At the very least, you might want to watch the video, if only to hear MW say “We’ll take several dumps” or “Take a good dump” with a straight face 🙂

Tools required

Note that the process is easier if you start with a jailbroken PS4, and that’s what MW’s video describes.

Here’s what you need to prepare and execute the downgrade. It is recommended to prepare all these tools (hardware or software) beforehand.

Material required

1. Your PS4, running on the firmware you may want to revert to
   • It is important. This is a “rollback backup” downgrade method and will not allow you to downgrade to firmware that you never created a backup for initially. Using someone else’s save won’t work either!
2. A hardware flasher such as a Teensy 4 (needed to get the SFlash0 from a non-jailbroken console and to copy it back during the downgrade process. Also needed to flush the syscon)
3. A heat gun (to desolder the syscon chip. This is needed to back it up)
4. A soldering iron
5. A tweezer
6. A TQFP Council
7. A 4 KOhm resistor
8. Some PCB wires
9. A switching diode
10. A USB to TTL adapter
11. A replacement syscon chip (the model you need to order depends on your motherboard, R5F100LLAFB or R5F100PLA, you can find them on Aliexpress)
    • As I understand it’s not required, but recommended, so you don’t have to constantly flash those chips
12. Renesas E2 Lite programmer, or other flashing

Software required

1. BwE NOR Validator, which will help you confirm that your save files are not corrupt (download here)
2. an FTP client such as filezilla
3. HDD Raw Copy (to make a backup of the hard drive)
4. Drivers for your USB to TTL adapter (eg drivers for CP2102 mentioned above)
5. MW’s Pack file which contains the software required for the glitch process

What you’ll need to save to prepare for a PS4 downgrade

The following data is what you will need to backup, then restore, to downgrade a PS4:

1. Full console hard drive backup
2. PS4 SFlash0 (NOR Firmware)
   • SFlash0 is extremely easy to get from a jailbroken console, as it’s just a file you can copy from FTP
3. Syscon PS4

As TL, DR, the idea is that you will save the above 3 data, then should be able to go to higher firmware, then go back. The Modded Warfare video of course has all the details.