Syscon Firmware

Syscon Firmware is the firmware stored on the System Controller EEPROM (see Syscon Hardware). Updates are stored in update packages within the Update_files.tar of a Playstation Update Package (PUP). Syscon Packages appear to always be 5KB (5376 bytes) in size.

Updates

General Speculation

It is rumored that the firmware are not complete updates, but only patches and are also further encrypted. It is further believed that these patches are decrypted and patch memory at runtime by the original syscon firmware.

Syscon update packages

d/l: syscon_fw1.00-4.00.rar (51.74 KB)

Package structure

Sys_con_firmware Packages can be unpacked with unpkg

Overview

Address	Length	Value	Description
0x00	0x4	ASCI:"SCE"	SCE magic header
0x04	0x4	0x2	Flags
0x08	0x4	0x3	Type (0x3 = PKG)
0x0C	0x4	0x0	Blank/Unknown
0x10	0x4	0x0	Blank/Unknown
0x10	0x8	0x280	Start Data Offset ('hdr_len')
0x18	0x8	0x1080	Data Size ('dec_size')
0x20	0x260	-	Header
0x280	0x40	-	'info0' section (see below)
0x2C0	0x40	-	'info1' section (see below)
0x300	0x1000	-	'content'

'info0'

Address	Length	Value	Description
0x00	0x4	0x3
0x04	0x4	0x8
0x08	0x4	0x0 or 0x1
0x0C	0x4	0x0B8E 0x0C16 0x0D52 0x0DBF 0x0E69 0x0F29 0x0F38 0x065D 0x0832 0x08C2 0x0918	'SoftID'
0x10	0x8	0x0001000000000004 0x0001000000000005 0x0001000000000006 0x0001000100030002 0x0001000100030003 0x0001000200030002 0x0001000300030002 0x0001000400040002 0x0001000500000002 0x0001000500010001 0x00010002083E0832	'PatchID'
0x18	0x8	0x1000	'Content' Data Size?
0x20	0x8	0x1000	'Content' Data Size?
0x28	0x8	0x0
0x30	0x10	0x0

'info1'

Address	Length	Value	Description
0x00	0x4	0x0
0x04	0x4	0x3
0x08	0x8	0x40	Offset/size?
0x10	0x4	0x0
0x14	0x4	0x0
0x18	0x8	0x1000	'Content' Data Size?
0x20	0x8	0x1
0x28	0x8	0x1
0x30	0x10	0x0

'content' overview:

Address	Length	Value	Description
0x0	0x1000	-	'content'

Known Retail syscon update packages

These are in in full Retail/CEX and Debug/DEX firmwares:

sys_con_firmware package	1.00-1.30	1.30-1.80	1.81-2.80	3.00-3.30	3.40	3.41-4.00	SoftID	Notes
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_01000004.pkg	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	0B8E
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_01000005.pkg	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	0B8E
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_01000006.pkg	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	0B8E
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_01010302.pkg	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	0C16
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_01010303.pkg	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	0C16
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_01020302.pkg	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	0D52
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_01030302.pkg	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	0DBF
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_01040402.pkg	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	0E69
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_01050002.pkg	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	0F29
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_01050101.pkg	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	0F38
SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_S1_00010002083E0832.pkg	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	0832

This means from syscon perspective notible firmware changes where made at 1.30, 1.81, 3.00, 3.40 and 3.41 (FW 1.30 added Backup/Restore, FW 3.00 resulted in Class action suit for BluRay reading problems).

NonRetail syscon

Remember, Debug/DEX consoles are normal retail consoles with different TargetID, so only those that have a nonretail board have deviating patches.

Tool/DECR don't have patches, they flash entire firmwares.

Deviating from Retail

Please note that without info about the SKU the listing of ID's is pretty useless

sys_con_firmware package	1.00-1.30	1.30-1.80	1.81-2.80	3.00-3.30	3.40	3.41-4.00	SoftID	Notes
?	?	?	?	?	?	Yes	08A0	Debug/DEX

Speculation of their usage

The firmware PUP's contains a collection of patches for all the different hardware revisions of syscon's chips used in different motherboard models, each of this different syscons has his specific "syscon update package"

The ps3swu.self (system updater) decides wich applicable Syscon Hardware is present and installs the needed package update accordingly.

Package numbers used in the names (marked as asterisks in this example) "SYS_CON_FIRMWARE_********.pkg" identifyes the "syscon hardware revision" "patch version" etc.. (not documented further)

This numeric string in the format wwxxyyzz can be "translated" to wwwwxxxxyyyyzzzz by adding 2 zeroes to each value, and is the syscon patches shown in the "secret" info screen More_System_Information

Note To end the speculation dispute:

1. reversing of ps3swu.self proves indisputable how exactly the packages are applied
2. more reported info is needed on the reported SC values in More_System_Information from the various SKU Models for their respective Syscon Hardware - especially when the values are non zero. Also the 00010002083E0832 seems to be an odd one, as it is rare to see this one reported.

Decryption

Packages can be decrypted with the unpkg tool. Decrypted content of the updates appears to always be 0x1000 bytes (4KB).

Header

The header format is completely unknown at this stage.

Sample

00000000  1B 2D 70 0F AB 5E B3 99 68 20 FE 3D E1 80 6A 1D  .-p.«^³™h þ=á€j.
00000010  B8 FD 37 CF CD 45 85 AB 51 F7 05 E3 EA 32 A5 EA  ¸ý7ÏÍE…«Q÷.ãê2¥ê
00000020  67 45 F9 48 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 C0 0F 00 00  gEùH........À...
00000030  8B 04 07 F9 9B A2 90 3A 75 89 F1 42 12 59 DA 0D  ‹..ù›¢.:u‰ñB.YÚ.
00000040  21 7C A2 C3 5A E4 78 00 10 8D 4B F7 A2 73 9C 63  !|¢ÃZäx...K÷¢sœc
00000050  5D 8D 5D 49 16 C7 6F 2C AD 33 FE 1F D3 6C A1 CA  ].]I.Ço,.3þ.Ól¡Ê
00000060  BA AD 2B FE 8F 33 71 D7 C5 E6 5C FF BF 77 6C 80  º.+þ.3q×Åæ\ÿ¿wl€
00000070  F2 BE 11 BB 3C 52 52 DC A9 68 E5 24 AD 4F F3 48  ò¾.»<RRÜ©hå$.OóH

Observations

• The first 4 bytes (0x1B2D700F) appear static in each package.
• The next 20 bytes appear to change with each package
• The following 12 bytes (0x0000000000100000C00F0000) also appear static

Access to Syscon from Linux

Access SysCon ROM without needing ps3dm-utils: http://wiki.gitbrew.org/index.php/PS3:HvReverseEngineering#SYSCON