Easiest PS4 mod for firmware 9.00 to 11.00 – Luckfox Pico Hack Kit

I’ve been playing around with my PlayStation 4 recently to mod it with the PPPwn network exploit so that I can install the GoldHEN homebrew enabler software. I made a video on the basic, bare bones version of the hack in this video, so please do have a look at that. In that video I went through the exploit process step by step using a connection over ethernet from the PS4 to my Windows PC. That was great to show the exploit process and how all the parts of the hack fitted together.

But it was a bit cumbersome. You have to physically run an ethernet cable from the console to the PC, run a Windows app on the PC to trigger the exploit and load the code and then force the PlayStation to talk to the PC to enable GoldHEN. And since GoldHEN resets if your console powers down or crashes, you have to go through that whole setup each time you want to enable it. This is made slightly better by allowing GoldHEN to stay active during Rest mode, but there is still a slight issue in the exploit which can cause the console to crash while shutting down, so you will have to reset GoldHEN enough to make it a pain.

So in this video we’ll be using a really neat PS4 hacking kit.

Let’s see what it is.

The PS4 Hack Kit

The hack kit is based on the PPPwn-Luckfox project that you can find out more about on this GitHub repository.

https://github.com/0x1iii1ii/PPPwn-Luckfox

In the kit you’ll get an RJ45 dongle that will plug into the network port of the PlayStation 4. A USB thumb drive with the GoldHEN payload, a USB C cable to power the dongle, and a nicely printed, but in my case totally useless manual.

These kits are available on AliExpress for around £16 and I’ll put some links in the description.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007650301243.html

But basically the dongle you get is a Luckfox Pico  Plus microcontroller neatly packaged in the plastic case so that you can easily leave it plugged into your PS4.

I usually like to run these projects from the base electronics, but in this case the cost of a Luckfox device plus short ethernet and USB C cables was going to be almost as much as the fully packaged system. Plus you end up with a device hanging off the back of the console. So this kit just seems like such an easy choice with zero setup.

If you are interested in seeing how to make your own then do please let me know in the comments and I’ll have a look at making a video on how to do that. Having said that I am planning a Raspberry Pi version soon which has a range of other advantages so do keep an eye out for that one.

PlayStation Official Firmware Versions

Now we have a kit we do need to do some preparation on the PlayStation.

First off we need to confirm we are using a compatible official firmware. If you power on the console and go to your Settings and System menu you can scroll down to System Information and check the firmware version.

The kit will mod most firmware versions up to 11.00. If your version is greater than 11.00 then you’re out of luck at the moment. As I make this video in May 2025 there is a version 12.00 hack coming out very soon but until then you’ll have to wait. Just make sure not to update your firmware any further.

If you’re below 11.00 you need to decide if you’re going to update to 11.00. I choose to update mine to get better compatibility with newer games and DLC content but you don’t have to if your firmware version is supported. I’ve put a list on screen to show you which ones are currently supported which is pretty much all of the one from 9 upwards.

If you do want to upgrade then please have a look at my original PS4 PPPwn video to save me repeating the process here.

Using the Kit

Well that’s everything we need to check so let’s mod the PlayStation.

To connect the kit you need to plug the dongle into the network port at the back of your console. This needs power so you’ll either need to run the supplied cable from the dongle to a front USB port, or if you’re using a Pro console there’s one right next to the network port.

Lastly the supplied USB drive simply goes into another USB port and we’ll all set up.

For this kit the USB thumb drive is only needed for the first installation. Once run the GoldHEN file on it is copied over the hard drive so you can then leave the USB drive unplugged.

We now need to jump onto the PlayStation 4 and set things up there.

First we need to turn off all automatic updates.

Go into your settings and then System and then Automatic Downloads and untick all of the options. If your console runs a firmware update it will probably take you to too high a version to run GoldHEN so we must turn this feature off.

Next we need to set up our network connection to work with the dongle.

This is where my included instructions went wrong. I spent a while trying to work out why my PS4 simply would not talk to my dongle. It wasn’t until I decided that I’d probably have to re flash the Luckfox microcontroller that I went to the support site. There I found a very helpful video that showed the activation process that was nothing like the instructions. So please do check your instructions and visit the support site first. Most likely it will be the same p4-tool.com site that I’m using.

Back on the console go to settings and then network. We want to set up an internet connection, and we’ll be using the Lan cable to connect through the network port.

We want to use custom settings and our IP address settings will be over PPPoE. The PPPwn exploit uses a bug in the PlayStation 4’s PPPoE code to allow it to inject the homebrew code into the console.

Next we need a specific username and password, not any random values. Both the PPPoE username and password need to be ppp, three lower case p’s.

The select next.

DNS should be automatic, as should MTU, and we don’t want to use a proxy server.

When you get to this end screen use the circle button to back out to the main XMB. Here we need to run the web browser.

Once that’s running go into the address bar an type in 10.1.1.1.

This will access the web control panel on the Luckfox microcontroller so you should see the webpage on screen now. Use your left joystick and X to select the config button.

On this page we can set how the Luckfox PPPwn code will work with your console. It needs to use different code payloads for each firmware version so start by selecting the matching PS4 Firmware settings. Here my console is on 11.00 so I’ll select the bottom option.

The rest of the settings can be left until you get down to the check boxes. Auto retry should be on so that if the exploit doesn’t get access first time it will keep trying until it successfully loads GoldHEN.

Next look at the Auto-Run checkbox.

GoldHEN is not a persistent mod. When you power off the console, or it crashes you have to go through this process of changing network settings and running the exploit to reactivate it. This setting will get the console to do this itself once you turn the power back on. Now it does need the network settings to be left as they are now to work correctly. If you switch over to WiFi for real Internet access you’ll need to reactivate the code as normal. But it can be useful if you leave your console disconnected from the web.

For this video I’m going to check the box.

Now click the Update Configuration button to save the settings.

If you scroll back down to the bottom of the screen click the back button to get back to the main PPPwn home screen.

We can now run PPPwn.

This will bring up a progress window that doesn’t really show much information, just that the exploit is running. What you will see, hopefully, are some network error messages as the Luckfox tries to trigger the exploit. It might take a couple of goes but eventually you’ll get the PPPwned message followed by a few other pop ups showing the various parts of the exploit completing.

At this point you should be able to get back out to the main XMB, and you should have a new GoldHEN option on the far left of the menu.

Congratulations, your console is now modded.

Final Settings

Before you start playing around with the homebrew apps there’s one setting in GoldHEN you should turn on.

Go into the GoldHEN menu and select the settings option. This is where we tell GoldHEN to stay active while the console is in Rest mode. If you don’t set this settings you’ll need to reactivate the exploit each time the console comes out of Rest mode.

Do be aware though that there is a bit of a bug in the code where it does crash the console sometimes as you enter Rest mode so don’t be alarmed if this restarting doesn’t go as normal every time.

What Next?

So you’ve now got GoldHEN activated and can start to use all the great features of a Homebrewed console. Do make sure you check out my PS4 playlist to get my full set of PlayStation 4 videos as I make them. I’ll be covering playing games from backup files, running PS1 and PS2 games, sorry no PS3 yet! And also using the PS4 to emulate a whole range of retro consoles from Atari, to Sega to Nintendo.