Possible SX Switch modchip clones appear on Taobao marketplace

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A challenger approaches, as a possible imitation product based on Team Xecuter's SX Core modchip has surfaced online. The discovery was initially posted to Chinese webforum Baidu, in which two images were uploaded, with claims of them being clones of SX Core. Supposedly, this knockoff chip would support Atmosphere CFW for the mariko and ipatched Nintendo Switch variants by soldering it exactly like you would with the SX Core. These clones have already appeared on Taobao and Xianyu, though they're currently priced at 700 Yuan ($108 USD) at the cheapest. While they may have "secretly shipped" off to various retailers to sell, it's still unknown as to whether or not these chips work, or if they're reliable. No word has been made as to whether or not the same mystery team has also cloned the SX Lite chips that have Switch Lite support, either.

New chips have appeared. Recently, Xianyu (Chinese retailer) has a batch of chips that can be bought in large quantities, which only support atmosphere, which is different from the previous tx chips. The imitated chips have already been secretly shipped.

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:discuss: GBAtemp Discussion Thread
 

Inaki

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stop being stupid there is no brick code because this is strictly hardware and it has no software and it is not even uisng any SX code
the pro is a FPGA so it can be programmed to emulate any hardware, this has NOTHING to do with SX
it is just a glitcher, so there is no way SX can put any brick code on it or that it will brick your system
the only thing hat can happen is that can fuck up your system if it is not good quality
Not into the brick code paranoia myself since it will be spacecraft-nx to load hekate or atmosphere payloads, probably. But the thing is, what do we need that FPGA for ? I'd say nothing, the original SX Core doesn't use one; at least from the switch glitching standpoint the MCU is enough. What would we want that for ?. Of course you may be able to access the FPGA and even the MCU from switch code, and ? that doesn't make it worth itself, you could add hardware by other means, even if it is not very worthy...

EDIT: Also, they say the regular one can't be updated.or flashed, or did I not understand correctly ? So, a) can we upgrade the MCU firmware or not ? And, also, if not, why does it still have that debug/update connector ?

All this is looking quite odd to me, they are probably just pushing the "for research purposes only" rhetoric, which is fime if that makes it more difficult for nipondo to sue them or anything.
 
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Joe88

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They look almost the exact same, just the regular is missing a chip above the fpga contacts, the mcu connector looks different on the pro. Also this chip is reportedly made in Malaysia, not china, that way tencent/cpp wont be able to touch them.
 
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Inaki

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They look almost the exact same, just the regular is missing a chip above the fpga contacts, the mcu connector looks different on the pro. Also this chip is reportedly made in Malaysia, not china, that way tencent/cpp wont be able to touch them.
No, MCU connector is the same, both solder 4 pads/tracks ( plus ground/anchoring pins, I guess ), that is, for a microUSB connector, it just happens that the regular one has the locking mechanism open.

Also, again, that FPGA is useless when it comes to glitching, so, what gives ?
 
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zakwarrior

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Can anyone confirm the price for sure ? Because i see on some sites 644/844 MYR (this is around 156/205$) and some others say 700¥
 

weatMod

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Not into the brick code paranoia myself since it will be spacecraft-nx to load hekate or atmosphere payloads, probably. But the thing is, what do we need that FPGA for ? I'd say nothing, the original SX Core doesn't use one; at least from the switch glitching standpoint the MCU is enough. What would we want that for ?. Of course you may be able to access the FPGA and even the MCU from switch code, and ? that doesn't make it worth itself, you could add hardware by other means, even if it is not very worthy...

EDIT: Also, they say the regular one can't be updated.or flashed, or did I not understand correctly ? So, a) can we upgrade the MCU firmware or not ? And, also, if not, why does it still have that debug/update connector ?

All this is looking quite odd to me, they are probably just pushing the "for research purposes only" rhetoric, which is fime if that makes it more difficult for nipondo to sue them or anything.
yes very good questions maybe it is just partly some things are getting lost in the Chingrish translation but yeah I can not imagine why we would need a FPGA in there when SX core and lite didn't have it
maybe it will allow it to take a flash for SX core or lite FW and th enon pro model will just be able to run spacecraft NX?
maybe it is for future proofing or something ,I really have no clue what it could be used for though
 
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iolo57

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yes very good questions maybe it is just partly some things are getting lost in the Chingrish translation but yeah I can not imagine why we would need a FPGA in there when SX core and lite didn't have it
maybe it will allow it to take a flash for SX core or lite FW and th enon pro model will just be able to run spacecraft NX?
maybe it is for future proofing or something ,I really have no clue what it could be used for though
Modchips SX Core and SX Lite also have an FPGA (iCE40LP1K-CM49 Lattice FPGA) and its firmware (bitstream) was programmed in NVCM and this is what was missing for a complete reverse engineering.
 

Inaki

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Modchips SX Core and SX Lite also have an FPGA (iCE40LP1K-CM49 Lattice FPGA) and its firmware (bitstream) was programmed in NVCM and this is what was missing for a complete reverse engineering.
can you elaborate on that ? where is that FPGA found on an SX core modchip ? is it part of the MCU chip ?

EDIT: ok, so I stand corrected then, this is a 3mmx3mm chip, it seems. So the SX core does use an FPGA.
 
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ShadowOne333

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I don't care much about the price nor where it comes from as much.
The important question here is...

How easy is it to install into the Switch?
I haven't seen any word about this at all.
 
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I mentioned this on another thread but I really hope that this
A) Lifts the taboo on people with hacked mariko units and
B) Encourages developers to port other OSes (Lineage and Ubuntu) to Mariko.
SwitchRoot said they aren't interested. Sadly even if another developer wanted to do this it would be gimped because the warm boot exploit has been patched. Without that you won't be able to put other oses in to sleep without fully shutting down the entire console.
 
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SciresM

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SwitchRoot said they aren't interested. Sadly even if another developer wanted to do this it would be gimped because the warm boot exploit has been patched. Without that you won't be able to put other oses in to sleep without fully shutting down the entire console.

Just use real warmboot firmware?

It's what I'm doing for atmosphere, don't see why it would fail for linux.

That said, I doubt developers will be interested, I know I'm very interested in distancing myself from clone chips using atmosphere.
 
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Just use real warmboot firmware?

It's what I'm doing for atmosphere, don't see why it would fail for linux.

That said, I doubt developers will be interested, I know I'm very interested in distancing myself from clone chips using atmosphere.
The official warm boot binaries aren't specific to hos? Why does l4t patch them on Erista? Wouldn't fuses be a problem too? If you can just ignore that stuff for other oses why can't they be ignored on AMS when (warm)booting with mismatched fuses too? Thanks.
 
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