Sun May 13, 2007 5:59 am by staxx
you can't upgrade straight to 3.40 oe because it is a homebrew firmware upgrade. The only sony firmware capable of running homebrew is 1.50. So in order to get to the custom firmware created by dark alex you must downgrade your psp's firmware to 1.50.
However, if you have 2.80 or lower you can downgrade straight to 1.50 without the need of GTA:LCS. If you have 2.81 or up you will need GTA:LCS to downgrade to 1.50.
You cant really tell which psp comes shipped in the box anymore because sony has switched up their stuff. In the past you used to be able to tell from the letter assigned on the box, but not anymore.
The tutorial you found (In your edit post) does not work with any other firmware than 2.71.