Fake Memory Stick: Know before You Buy

[XsavioR]

Ebay put together this fake MS id'ing post. great to read b4 you buy since fakes are EASY to notice.

http://reviews.ebay.com.au/FAKE-Sony-Memory-Stick-Pro-Duo-MagicGate-Cards-Exposed_W0QQugidZ10000000001535703

Don't use focalprice.com users of this forum have found that they are selling non working devices , at super discounted rates. It is not clearly noted that the parts sold are non working...... Best to stay away from them unless you know what your asking for and buying.

[JKing]

good ass find bro.

[Fanpire22]

How I would love to have that help some months before... Well, at least I won't be cheated again, thanks to you

[knicky91]

great, thanks for the find.

Cheers.

[karasuman]

Well, sigh.

I bought a 4 GB MS on eBay for about $40 because one of my coworkers assured me that it would work fine. It was listed as "generic", but I didn't realize that that meant "fake."

I've looked at some guides to detecting a fake, and the only aspect of it that jumps out is the lack of italicized Ss in the model number.

I'm not sure what to do now. On the one hand, maybe it will work fine. If it works for longer than 60 days and then quits, I'm SOL, but if it breaks before then, I can submit a fraud report through PayPal and hopefully get my money back, I guess.

Has anyone owned a fake MS and *not* had trouble with it?

[Krelian]

A fake Sony High Speed 2GB came with my PSP off eBay.
It was almost perfect! Physically the ONLY earmark was a small holographic sticker on the bottom that said BYI (why would that be there?). In your PSP if you go over to Video and hit TRIANGLE and go into Information it will tell you MagicGate Supported or Unknown... my BYI fake said Unknown.
The only usable issues I had with it was that it's read/write speeds were a bit slower than they should of been but it never caused slower than normal loading or lag for me.
Honestly that was probably one of the best fakes that was out there and it was an exception... none the less I did buy a real one from the store and returned the fake in its place...
Besides the possibility of a fake not being able to hold as much data as the real thing it can also randomly decide to not load data properly (actually a fairly common problem when playing ISOs on a fake).
But if it works well enough it works well enough, if I wasn't an obsessive perfectionist when it comes to my games/hardware I wouldn't have cared about my fake since it never gave me a single issue... yours may...
One last thing: NEVER perform a firmware upgrade/downgrade using a fake memory card! You run a very real risk when you do this, use only high quality memory sticks that report MagicGate Supported!

[kittyangel]

How do I tell if it is fake or not if I am only given the memory stick without the package. Even with the package, sometimes I can't tell if it is real or not.

[shadowthor]

You can always test in your psp and press triangle when the memory stick is highlighted and it will say information, then click x and it will say magicgate supported if it is real and magicgate unknown if it is fake.

[Death_Pigeon]

Im not trying to promote fakes but i got a fake off ebay i checked it said magic gate Unknown and it ran better than my brothers real one which he bought from the stores o well guess ill go out and by a 4 gig from the stores to be sure next time.

[roe-ur-boat]

What d oyou mean it ran better than your bro's real one?

[canadajames]

I'm guessing he is reffering to the transfer rate of the stick and the speed at which it loads things. Which doesn't make much sense but hey why not.

[shadowthor]

maybe they have better fakes one out there nowadays....still wouldn't recommend getting a fake one.

[knicky91]

Fake memory sticks arn't really that bad as people think they are.

The main differences are that they usually have a few less Mb's than real MSPD's, they may be a mm thicker, a bit slower data transfer speed or they aren't as sturdy as a real memory card.

But either than that, they are quite good and should get all of your tasks done.

Also, this goes to karasuman: You can also tell if a memory card is fake by looking at the price. As your MSPD was $40 for a 4GB card, it is pretty obvious that it will be fake.

[roe-ur-boat]

Fake memory sticks arn't really that bad as people think they are.

The main differences are that they usually have a few less Mb's than real MSPD's, they may be a mm thicker, a bit slower data transfer speed or they aren't as sturdy as a real memory card.

But either than that, they are quite good and should get all of your tasks done.

Also, this goes to karasuman: You can also tell if a memory card is fake by looking at the price. As your MSPD was $40 for a 4GB card, it is pretty obvious that it will be fake.
Fake memory sticks also sometimes do not recognize isos and other homebrew

[shadowthor]

due to no magicgate in it.

[Cheezeball99]

Yah, but it's only the big files fake memsticks seemingly have problems with, which leads me to believe that it's more of an issue of just bad media, corrupted fragments/file clusters more than just the Magicgate.

[Acerthief]

**Thread moved to PSP General Section and Stickied ;)*

[canadajames]

I have noticed problems with bigger files but also with much smaller ones too I guess it just depends on the rip and stuff.

[RJC4LIFE]

Do I have a fake then? It's a 4GB Lexar MagicGate and it runs everything fine but will not load prx..No in game recovery.prx,cwcheat.prx etc. It did run cwcheat before and ingame recovery.prx but not anymore unless it was already loaded in memory from another stick.
The PS3 and my PC can't seem to get the remaining size right, it says 203MB when there's really 1.75 GB left.(according to the PSP) I can still add files and when it uses up the difference between 1.75GB and 203 MB the PS3 and PC report it ok..

So..what's up with that?

[x3sphere]

Do I have a fake then? It's a 4GB Lexar MagicGate and it runs everything fine but will not load prx..No in game recovery.prx,cwcheat.prx etc. It did run cwcheat before and ingame recovery.prx but not anymore unless it was already loaded in memory from another stick.
The PS3 and my PC can't seem to get the remaining size right, it says 203MB when there's really 1.75 GB left.(according to the PSP) I can still add files and when it uses up the difference between 1.75GB and 203 MB the PS3 and PC report it ok..

So..what's up with that?

Nope not fake, Lexar memory sticks are just really slow and not fast enough to load most plugins.

[RJC4LIFE]

Thanks for the reply!! Time to invest in a Sandisk 4GB or higher mem stick!

[frosty5689]

Apart from identifying fake sony ms what about sandisk ms identification? Also, is it true that 8gb memorysticks doesn't work properly with cfw? or it does?

[x3sphere]

Apart from identifying fake sony ms what about sandisk ms identification? Also, is it true that 8gb memorysticks doesn't work properly with cfw? or it does?

8GB sticks work fine with custom firmware, it's just that they don't work properly with the 1.5 kernel.

Any application that's written for the 3.X kernel will work fine with an 8GB.

[frosty5689]

oh okay thanks.

[alabatusa]

ive had my fake memory stick, for ages, abt 2 years bought it of ebay, never have had anyproblems, been working fine ever since, all iso's have worked for me.. only thing is that some homebrews dont work, but im pretty sure thats cos of my noobiness in installn em. it just goes game could not be started and quits, probly have to change to 1.5 kernel

[vicount]

i bought 2 so called genuine sony 4 gb pro duo and i had checked all the tell tell signs that ebay warned about and they read as unknown on my psp. they are both workin fine, maybe slower than an original card, but nothing i cant live with. i suppose time will tell!

[Professor Burnt]

the ones that might be fake are also the 2$ ones from hong kong that dont even come in the right colour package

[truongazn]

What is the actual transfer speed supposed to be on a genuine Sony Memory Stick

[dodgerboy70]

[QUOTE=XsavioR;3248]Ebay put together this fake MS id'ing post. great to read b4 you buy since fakes are EASY to notice.

http://reviews.ebay.com.au/FAKE-Sony-Memory-Stick-Pro-Duo-MagicGate-Cards-Exposed_W0QQugidZ10000000001535703[/QUO

[dodgerboy70]

Ebay put together this fake MS id'ing post. great to read b4 you buy since fakes are EASY to notice.

http://reviews.ebay.com.au/FAKE-Sony-Memory-Stick-Pro-Duo-MagicGate-Cards-Exposed_W0QQugidZ10000000001535703

yeah i guess i should read thanks

[arcenio]

it is easy to define an fake m.stick,use your psp eg. power on the psp go to the game you see the memory stick click the triangle,then click the information you see at the bottom of the information of the m.stick.If the info. is unknown the m.stick is fake,if supported its original one.

[BeNnY]

Thanks very usefull!

[BeNnY]

Double post :(

Is there a Lexar 16GB memory stick?

[MenaceInc]

Double post :(

Is there a Lexar 16GB memory stick?

please do not double post.

as for a lexar 16gb MS,there doesn't appear to be one yet.

http://search.lexar.com/exec/?n=1&u1=q&size=16GB&u2=size&q=memory%20card

these appear to be all the memory cards that lexar do in 16gb versions



EDIT: quick google shows that there does appear to be 16gb MS's about
http://www.mymemory.co.uk/compatible-memory/Digital_Cameras/Sony/Sony+Cybershot+DSC+T30?gb=1&prodid=12160
but i don't know how respectable that site is since i always use eBay or Overclockers.co.uk

DOUBLE EDIT:
it is easy to define an fake m.stick,use your psp eg. power on the psp go to the game you see the memory stick click the triangle,then click the information you see at the bottom of the information of the m.stick.If the info. is unknown the m.stick is fake,if supported its original one.

this is not true.not all real MS's show as MagicGate:Supported...in fact,if i remember,i seen a friends one time that showed it was real yet it performed like a fake....it's not a be all,end all factor in spotting fakes

[BeNnY]

well i just bought a lexar 16gb off ebay...
this scares me a bit....

[MenaceInc]

well i just bought a lexar 16gb off ebay...
this scares me a bit....

proof that you can get 16gb memory sticks...
http://www.mymemory.co.uk/Memory-Stick-PRO-DUO?&filter=16384#memFilter

again though,no lexar....considering this,i would doubt that the memory card you got was real but...i dunno.