An absolute must; Torch’s Hold+… That’s if, a) you use your PSP for jamming tunes, and/or b) your PSP’s hold switch is semi-busted. Here’s how it works, when the hold switch is on, Hold+ does the following:

• Switches off the LCD screen and backlight.
• Under clocks the CPU to 60MHz.
• Turns off LEDs.
• Allows the use of Left, Right, LTrigger, RTrigger, Volume and Start buttons if you hold the Select button first.

…Therefore you’re saving battery power while listening to your music. And when you hit the switch back down:

• The original screen brightness and clock speed are restored.

Oh yeah, Hold+ does this too:

• Prevents the PSP from going into suspend mode if you accidentally push the power switch too far when turning off Hold mode.
• Fixes malfunctioning hold switch.
• Enables the 5th brightness level on the PSP Slim.
• Increases the vertical scrolling speed under the music menu by around 50% (scroll 300 songs in 10 seconds).

Hold+ v4.0 changes:

• This is a fix for people with broken Hold switches that keep randomly switching on and off while in Hold mode. Now when the Hold switch is enabled, the PSP remains in hold mode permanently until the switch is fully pushed to the power off position. This will prevent a malfunctioning Hold switch from randomly interfering.
• Removed Display Off mode (hold ANALOG UP while releasing Hold) since holding Select is sufficient for most users.

Download: Hold+ v4.0

- source: torch.freeweb7

It’s all about battery power preservation and convenience with Torch’s Hold+. When enabled, this happens –

• Switches off the LCD screen and backlight.
• Underclocks the CPU to 60MHz.
• The original screen brightness and clock speed are restored when the Hold switch is released.
• Prevents the PSP from going into suspend mode if you accidentally push the power switch too far when turning off Hold mode.
• Allows complete operation of the PSP controls with the display turned off.
• Turns off LEDs in hold mode.
• While in hold mode, allows the use of Left, Right, LTrigger, RTrigger, Volume and Start buttons, if you hold the Select button first. Useful to skip songs, pause etc.
• Enables the 5th brightness level on PSP Slim.
• Increases the vertical scrolling speed of Music player by around 50% (scroll 300 songs in 10 seconds).

Hold+ v3.8 changelog:

• 5th brightness level now works correctly on PSP-3000.

Download: Hold+ v3.8

- source: qj

I missed this one yesterday… Torch’s Hold+ v3.7. Hold+ is the ultimate plugin for any hacked PSP and here’s why:

…the ultimate companion to the PSP’s music player. It adds useful features and gives you TWICE the battery life when used properly.

It does the following when the Hold switch is enabled:

• Switches off the LCD screen and backlight.
• Underclocks the CPU to 60MHz
• The original screen brightness and clock speed are restored when the Hold switch is released.
• Prevents the PSP from going into suspend mode if you accidentally push the power switch too far when turning off Hold mode.
• Allows complete operation of the PSP controls with the display turned off.
• Turns off LEDs in hold mode.
• While in hold mode, allows the use of Left, Right, LTrigger, RTrigger, Volume and Start buttons, if you hold the Select button first. Useful to skip songs, pause etc.

Get it? Got it? Good. Now onto the changes:

• Optimized Code.
• Proper fixed to prevent any chance of accidental suspend when coming out of hold mode due to pushing switch too far.
• LEDs do not blink every 30 seconds anymore.

Download: Hold+ v3.7

- source: exophase

This is news to me; it’s wild stuff actually… Reported are two UMDs — DJ Max Fever and Dissidia: Final Fantasy — that actually check the contents of your memory stick, if one finds something it doesn’t like, it takes unexpected action… And there could be others too.

This is where Torch’s CFW Folder Blocker comes into play. Prevent UMDs from detecting the presence of the ms0:/seplugins and ms0:/iso directories on your memory stick. Since version 1.1, CFW Folder Blocker no longer activates when using homebrew. So as the old adage goes: check yourself, before you wreck yourself.

Download: CFW Folder Blocker v1.1

- source: qj

Torch has a new version of his battery saver plug-in available — Hold+ v3.6. Aside from the already known features below, version 3.6 enables the 5th brightness level on the PSP Slim, and increases the music player’s scrolling speed; it’s said to scroll 300 songs in 10 seconds.

Hold+ v3.6 features:

• Switches off the LCD screen and back light.
• Under clocks the CPU to 60MHz.
• The original screen brightness and clock speed are restored when the Hold switch is released.
• Prevents the PSP from going into suspend mode if you accidently push the power switch too far when turning off Hold mode.
• Allows complete operation of the PSP controls with the display turned off.
• Turns off LEDs in hold mode. LEDs are flashed once in 30 seconds so that the PSP is not mistaken to be powered off.
• While in hold mode, allows the use of Left, Right, LTrigger, RTrigger, Volume and Start buttons, if you hold the Select button first. Useful to skip songs, pause etc.

Download: Hold+ v3.6

- source: qj

From the author of Hold+ is another plug-in bound to serve a useful purpose… Enter Torch’s Lockdown In-Game.

“Lockdown In-Game” prevents your siblings and/or other human annoyances from messing with your game while in its suspended state. Lets just hope whoever doesn’t have the PSP know-how when it comes to switching the device completely off; then you’re screwed.

Lockdown In-Game v2.0 changes:

• Greatly improved suspend/resume method.
• Should be compatible with all games now. (Any problems with suspend/resume are probably due to the No-UMD driver that you have selected)
• You can suspend the PSP again in the password screen without entering a password using the Power switch.

Download: Lockdown In-Game v2.0

- source: qj

Update: And one more for the count –

Fixed a bug where if the battery was low, and the Power LED was blinking, and you turned off the Hold switch exactly at the moment before the Power LED blinked, the problem of the disappearing battery icon would occur.

The method of prevent accidental suspend has been changed back to adrahil’s SysEvent method, instead of Booster’s method which was used from v3.0, which was causing various problems as it worked by corrupting SysCon packets that contained the Power Switch On signal.

Update: Torch has released Hold+ v3.2 which fixes a couple bugs –

• Fixed a bug where after you exit a Photo or the Browser, the battery icon would keep disappearing and reappearing.
• Fixed a bug where each time you exit a Photo or the Browser, the first time you turn on Hold after that it would only go to Normal Hold mode.

Prolong your [hacked] PSP battery life by simply installing Torch’s Hold+. When the hold switch is enabled, Hold+ will take the necessary steps to ensure battery juice is preserved to the fullest. How does it work? See the download page for details.

(more…)

Hold+ v2.71 Update:

• Fixed a bug where after the first time you resume from suspend the Analog Up + Hold Switch Off would not work.

Torch has a real simple PRX plug-in to squeeze some extra minutes, perhaps even hours, of game play from your PlayStation Portable. If it’s already hacked — you may as well download, install, and enable Hold+. There’s no harm in that. And if your PSP isn’t hacked — what’s the hold up?

Hold+ v2.64 to v2.7 changes:

• LEDs are turned off when in Hold mode or Display Off mode, but they are flashed every 30 seconds so that the PSP is not mistaken to be powered off.
• Fixed a bug introduced in v2.64 where the PSP wouldn’t automatically suspend after being idle while in Hold mode or Display Off mode.
• While in Display Off mode, you can now also turn on the display by pushing the power switch to the suspend position.
• Pressing the Screen button also works but I recommend using the power switch instead, because when you press the Screen button, the firmware sets its internal brightness variable to the next level, even though the screen is functioning at the original brightness. Thus if you leave it idle after turning on the display using the Screen button, and the screen dims due to the PSP being idle, when you press a button it will jump to the next brightness level.

Download: Hold+ v2.71

- source: qj

Squeeze extra juice from your PSP battery life with Torch’s Hold+. Really, it’s simple — when the hold switch is on, your battery power stays strong.

Here’s how Hold+ works…

• Switches off the LCD backlight.
• Switches off the actual LCD screen. (This is important because the backlight and actual screen are two different things. You can have an image being displayed on the screen while the backlight is switched off, such that you can see the image if you use a flashlight. You can also have the screen switched off while the backlight still illuminates the powered off screen.)
• Under clocks the CPU to 61MHz (Sony has changed the clock speed functions such that only certain combination of speeds work correctly. Simply trying to under clock to arbitrary values will result in the CPU simply running at the stock speed. I have verified that Hold+ successfully under clocks to 61MHz.)
• The original screen brightness and clock speed are restored when the Hold switch is released.
• Prevents the PSP from going into suspend mode if you accidentally push the power switch too far when turning off Hold mode.
• Allows operation of the PSP with the display turned off, to change volume, skip songs etc.

Download: Hold+ v2.63

- source: qj