Hacking Question Installing Atmosphere on SX Core (v1 iPatched). Is this the correct way?

masbass · Sep 27, 2020

Hi all, ready to install the SX Core on my ipatched v1 Switch on FW 10.2.0. The easier way forward would be using the SX OS provided with the modchip however I fear that sometime in the future Team Xecuter will undestandably stop supporting it while Atmosphere is more likely to be kept updated by the community for a lot longer. So, I want to skip SX OS entirely and use a clean OFW sysnand in the internal Switch nand for rare online connections and a CFW emunand in the SD Card running Atmosphere.

From reading many many posts, tutorials and videos I have a sequence below that I'm posting so I can get a confirmation that what I'm doing is correct and I don't end up with a brick (or leave smth important out that cannot be corrected afterwards). I tried to make it as detailed as possible so if anyone posts a mistake/omission or have anything to add please do so. Thanks.

00. Things to do before taking the Switch apart
Check I'm at the latest Switch firmware and the latest SX OS version, Hekate and Atmosphere support it.
Charge up my Switch to 100% as many things will be done off battery in the next steps.
Download at least one digital game from the Nintendo store, any game, just a free one will do.
If I was already using an SD card in my Switch for storage I backup my Nintendo folder in it as it will be reformatted in the next steps.

After all is well with the hardware modding part and I get green light + the boot.dat screen confirming the chip works what do I do?

01. Initial boot into SX OS
I format a large SD card (64GB or more) as exFAT (so I can save nand as one big file instead of many parts)
I copy boot.dat of latest SXOS (v.3.0.5) in root folder of SD Card.
I unzip an SD setup zip file from https://www.sdsetup.com/console?switch also in root (and I get folders like atmosphere, bootloader, config, sept etc)
I copy Hekate (hekate_ctcaer_5.3.3.bin) in root folder of SD Card.
I press power with + held down and in the SX OS menu I select Options -> SX Core -> Cleanup
from Payloads I select Hekate

02. SysNand backup
In there I select Tools -> Backup eMMC -> Backup eMMC Boot0 & Boot1
then after it's finished in that same submenu
-> Backup eMMC RAW GPP (this creates a ~30GB file: rawnand.bin in the SD card)
after it's over I go to Home -> Power Off

I copy all files extracted from Switch (that are in a folder called backup in my SD card) to a safe place on my PC. Even copy them again to an external storage drive as backup.

I shut down Switch and start it with + pushed down along with Power button

03a. Partitioning SD Card in Hekate
in Hekate I go to Tools -> Arch bit
then select -> Partition SD Card
press OK to the first screen that shows the current partition layout and on the following screen I select 29GB at the red emuMMC(RAW) line, the first green HOS(Fat32) line readjusts and leave blue Linux(EXT4) and orange Android(USER) lines to 0GB. I then select Next Step and Start. After it's over I press Close and go to (04).

[or]

03b. Partitioning SD Card in Windows
I create one FAT32 partition in the beginning of the SD Card partition table (where all other files will be stored) leaving 30GB of unpartitioned space at the end so the emuMMC can be stored there in the next step (04). In the large FAT32 partition I copy all the files from that SD setup zip file + SXOX boot.dat.
I press power with + held down and in the SX OS menu I select Options -> SX Core -> Cleanup
from Payloads I select Hekate.

04. Creation of emuMMC/emuNAND
In Hekate from Home I go to emuMMC where emuMMC is disabled (orange) on the left and I go to Create emuMMC on the right and select SD Partition where it will select the one we created before (Part 1) so I press Part 1 and it will do another dump of my NAND in the second partition I created (the 29GB one). After it's done I press close and now I see it's enabled (green) on the left. I then go Home -> Launch and select CFW (EMUMMC) and CFW from the emulated MMC on the SD card loads with Atmosphere modifications.

05. Getting my Console's Unique Keys (optional but hey, it might be useful one day)
I start my Switch up by pressing power with + held down and in the SX OS menu I select Options -> SX Core -> Cleanup
from Payloads I select Hekate (I do not select Lockpick_RCM from the SX OS Payloads directly but from the Hekate Payloads section below).
In Hekate's Payloads I select Lockpick_RCM.bin (it should be already installed in my SD by that SD Setup zip pack). In this program volume buttons navigate lists/menus and power button selects. If asked I select SysNAND (and NOT emuMMC) and if I'm asked to Reboot to Sept I press power or any volume button to do so. Atmosphere appears, Lockpick_RCM restarts and gives me a message that my keys have been saved in /switch/prod.keys of my SD card. Like my NAND backup I save this file on my PC for backup.

Day to day operation
From now on I'm staying in CFW emuMMC, the Switch just goes to sleep when not in use and wakes up in CFW emuMMC. If I need to fully shut it down I'll need to go through the I press power with + held down and in the SX OS menu I select Options -> SX Core -> Cleanup , from Payloads I select Hekate, then in Hekate -> Launch and select CFW (EMUMMC) to get back into Atmosphere CFW. Under no circumstances should I enable Auto-RCM or anything that automatically puts the Switch in RCM mode.
Edit: after I get my latest sigpatches for Atmosphere installed I might get errors when installing via GoldLeaf. What seems to work is the following: I press power with + held down and in the SX OS menu I select Options -> SX Core -> Cleanup , from Payloads I select Hekate, then in Hekate instead of launching emmc from Launch I select Payloads and select fusee-primary. This launches Atmosphere and the sigpatches now work.

Slow glitching at boot: At first you'll see the chip glitch real fast, only pulsing 3-4 times at blue colour before getting to green. After you install latest 3.0.5 SX OS it will take close to a full minute blinking in blue (mine takes around 1 min 15 secs) before turning green. This is NOT an error/problem, let it blink blue until it gets to green (or pink or red if there's a problem). Latest SX OS is turning off the modchip completely so it doesn't waste battery on standby so it keeps no glitching info from previous boots and has to do the "learning" process again.

And some questions I couldn't find answers to:
When I turn Switch on without pushing the + volume button and I have SX Core installed, what happens? Does it just load OFW Sysnand like it would without a modchip?

If for some reason the Switch completely runs out of battery is there some process I should do or do I directly leave it on dock for charging?

I saw some installation tutorials mentioned creating a separate FAT32 partition of around 600MB at the start of the SD card where all programs would reside (Atmosphere, Hekate, SX OS, other Homebrew). I'm guessing this is purely for organizing them separately from games and does not improve compatibility/speed, right?

sbaq · Sep 27, 2020

Dont USE Lockpick_RCM only Lockpick.nro u will brick youre Switch with SX Core/Lite

HenryMin · Sep 27, 2020

sbaq said:
Dont USE Lockpick_RCM only Lockpick.nro u will brick youre Switch with SX Core/Lite

Not true, Lockpick_RCM doesn't brick any consoles.

Installing atmosphere is simple, just put latest Atmosphere and fusee-primary.bin in sd card, run cleanup in SX Core menu,
and then inject fusee-primary.bin in SX payload menu.

Also, SX emunand will work on atmosphere if you write this thing to /emuMMC/emummc.ini

Code:

[emummc]
enabled=1
sector=0x2
path=emuMMC/ER00
id=0x0000
nintendo_path=Emutendo

masbass said:
And some questions I couldn't find answers to:
When I turn Switch on without pushing the + volume button and I have SX Core installed, what happens? Does it just load OFW Sysnand like it would without a modchip?

If you boot without pushing the volume up button, it will auto-boot to SXOS. If you generated emuNAND, it will auto-boot to SXOS emuNAND.

masbass said:
If for some reason the Switch completely runs out of battery is there some process I should do or do I directly leave it on dock for charging?

Enter SX boot menu by pressing volume up button, and charge the console. It's the best way to charge it when the console is completely discharged.

masbass · Sep 27, 2020

Thanks for your replies, what do you mean by this:

HenryMin said:
Also, SX emunand will work on atmosphere if you write this thing to /emuMMC/emummc.ini

Does this enable a separate emunand with SX OS? So that I can have OFW Sysnand and in the SD one Atmosphere emunand and one SX OS emunand?

sbaq · Sep 27, 2020

I bricked my first Lite with Lockpick_RCM!

HenryMin · Sep 27, 2020

sbaq said:
I bricked my first Lite with Lockpick_RCM!

I tested it on my mariko, it's just black screen and it didn't brick my console.
After hard resetting (Press power button for 10 seconds), my console booted up normally.

Also OP is Erista user, lockpick rcm will work on it.

masbass said:
Thanks for your replies, what do you mean by this:

Does this enable a separate emunand with SX OS? So that I can have OFW Sysnand and in the SD one Atmosphere emunand and one SX OS emunand?

It means you can create emuNAND both compatible with SXOS and Atmosphere, but it's not a necessary procedure.

masbass · Sep 27, 2020

GREEN LIGHT ON THE FIRST TRY!!!!!

onwards to softmod

x3n0 · Sep 28, 2020

masbass said:
GREEN LIGHT ON THE FIRST TRY!!!!!

onwards to softmod

Nice work

ELY_M · Sep 29, 2020

following, I know many people who want to run atmosphere on patched units and mariko units.

Burnttoast1 · Sep 29, 2020

I'm glad found this forum. It answered a lot of question I had. I'm more familiar using atmosphere.

nikitaluger · Sep 30, 2020

HenryMin said:
Installing atmosphere is simple

Is there a guide available for this?

Edit: never mind, seems like a V1 and V2 switch matters. I have V2.

indierocker774 · Oct 7, 2020

Following. I just received my SX Core for my V2, but I'm not sure which CFW route I should go now that it looks like SX OS might fall apart soon. Is anyone else in a similar position or does any one have a recommendation on how to proceed?

ChronoTrig · Oct 7, 2020

indierocker774 said:
Following. I just received my SX Core for my V2, but I'm not sure which CFW route I should go now that it looks like SX OS might fall apart soon. Is anyone else in a similar position or does any one have a recommendation on how to proceed?

In the current state you'll only be using SXOS for now since Atmosphere hasn't added support yet for Mariko (V2). It's on their list of things to do (roadmap - it's on their GitHub with timelines of when they want to have things implemented).
Personally, I've never used SXOS and have always used Atmosphere so I'm OK with it and the updates come very quickly even after Nintendo updates.
Given the situation, Atmosphere may or may not prioritize V2 now since SX may likely falter for a bit (unsure if they'll completely disappear, but I personally don't think so). There's people behind the scenes for SX to do updates, but they may stay very low for now because of the arrests of their top members. If there's money to be made, then they'll stick around to continue selling and making updates.
But with that said, I'd go with Atmosphere since it's community driven and open source = quicker to release updates and possibly better customer support (?).

indierocker774 · Oct 8, 2020

ChronoTrig said:
In the current state you'll only be using SXOS for now since Atmosphere hasn't added support yet for Mariko (V2). It's on their list of things to do (roadmap - it's on their GitHub with timelines of when they want to have things implemented).
Personally, I've never used SXOS and have always used Atmosphere so I'm OK with it and the updates come very quickly even after Nintendo updates.
Given the situation, Atmosphere may or may not prioritize V2 now since SX may likely falter for a bit (unsure if they'll completely disappear, but I personally don't think so). There's people behind the scenes for SX to do updates, but they may stay very low for now because of the arrests of their top members. If there's money to be made, then they'll stick around to continue selling and making updates.
But with that said, I'd go with Atmosphere since it's community driven and open source = quicker to release updates and possibly better customer support (?).

Thanks for your input! It almost seems like I'd be better off waiting to install the chip until after atmosphere releases support for V2, At least I won't run the risk of a ban and can play upcoming games.

ChronoTrig · Oct 9, 2020

@indierocker774
This is very good news. SX modchip firmware got dumped. Mariko support is available for Hekate (pending release with Atmosphere), but Atmosphere is not yet (maybe they are actually working on it as we speak).
https://gbatemp.net/threads/sx-modchip-firmware-has-been-dumped.575204/page-2#post-9226853

indierocker774 · Oct 14, 2020

ChronoTrig said:
@indierocker774
This is very good news. SX modchip firmware got dumped. Mariko support is available for Hekate (pending release with Atmosphere), but Atmosphere is not yet (maybe they are actually working on it as we speak).

That would be fantastic! I figured support would eventually come with TX in hot water but not that soon. Very cool.

switchitup · Oct 22, 2020

masbass said:
Hi all, ready to install the SX Core on my ipatched v1 Switch on FW 10.2.0. The easier way forward would be using the SX OS provided with the modchip however I fear that sometime in the future Team Xecuter will undestandably stop supporting it while Atmosphere is more likely to be kept updated by the community for a lot longer. So, I want to skip SX OS entirely and use a clean OFW sysnand in the internal Switch nand for rare online connections and a CFW emunand in the SD Card running Atmosphere.

From reading many many posts, tutorials and videos I have a sequence below that I'm posting so I can get a confirmation that what I'm doing is correct and I don't end up with a brick (or leave smth important out that cannot be corrected afterwards). I tried to make it as detailed as possible so if anyone posts a mistake/omission or have anything to add please do so. Thanks.

00. Things to do before taking the Switch apart
Check I'm at the latest Switch firmware and the latest SX OS version, Hekate and Atmosphere support it.
Charge up my Switch to 100% as many things will be done off battery in the next steps.
Download at least one digital game from the Nintendo store, any game, just a free one will do.
If I was already using an SD card in my Switch for storage I backup my Nintendo folder in it as it will be reformatted in the next steps.

After all is well with the hardware modding part and I get green light + the boot.dat screen confirming the chip works what do I do?

01. Initial boot into SX OS
I format a large SD card (64GB or more) as exFAT (so I can save nand as one big file instead of many parts)
I copy boot.dat of latest SXOS (v.3.0.5) in root folder of SD Card.
I unzip an SD setup zip file from https://www.sdsetup.com/console?switch also in root (and I get folders like atmosphere, bootloader, config, sept etc)
I copy Hekate (hekate_ctcaer_5.3.3.bin) in root folder of SD Card.
I press power with + held down and in the SX OS menu I select Options -> SX Core -> Cleanup
from Payloads I select Hekate

02. SysNand backup
In there I select Tools -> Backup eMMC -> Backup eMMC Boot0 & Boot1
then after it's finished in that same submenu
-> Backup eMMC RAW GPP (this creates a ~30GB file: rawnand.bin in the SD card)
after it's over I go to Home -> Power Off

I copy all files extracted from Switch (that are in a folder called backup in my SD card) to a safe place on my PC. Even copy them again to an external storage drive as backup.

I shut down Switch and start it with + pushed down along with Power button

03a. Partitioning SD Card in Hekate
in Hekate I go to Tools -> Arch bit
then select -> Partition SD Card
press OK to the first screen that shows the current partition layout and on the following screen I select 29GB at the red emuMMC(RAW) line, the first green HOS(Fat32) line readjusts and leave blue Linux(EXT4) and orange Android(USER) lines to 0GB. I then select Next Step and Start. After it's over I press Close and go to (04).

[or]

03b. Partitioning SD Card in Windows
I create one FAT32 partition in the beginning of the SD Card partition table (where all other files will be stored) leaving 30GB of unpartitioned space at the end so the emuMMC can be stored there in the next step (04). In the large FAT32 partition I copy all the files from that SD setup zip file + SXOX boot.dat.
I press power with + held down and in the SX OS menu I select Options -> SX Core -> Cleanup
from Payloads I select Hekate.

04. Creation of emuMMC/emuNAND
In Hekate from Home I go to emuMMC where emuMMC is disabled (orange) on the left and I go to Create emuMMC on the right and select SD Partition where it will select the one we created before (Part 1) so I press Part 1 and it will do another dump of my NAND in the second partition I created (the 29GB one). After it's done I press close and now I see it's enabled (green) on the left. I then go Home -> Launch and select CFW (EMUMMC) and CFW from the emulated MMC on the SD card loads with Atmosphere modifications.

05. Getting my Console's Unique Keys (optional but hey, it might be useful one day)
I start my Switch up by pressing power with + held down and in the SX OS menu I select Options -> SX Core -> Cleanup
from Payloads I select Hekate (I do not select Lockpick_RCM from the SX OS Payloads directly but from the Hekate Payloads section below).
In Hekate's Payloads I select Lockpick_RCM.bin (it should be already installed in my SD by that SD Setup zip pack). In this program volume buttons navigate lists/menus and power button selects. If asked I select SysNAND (and NOT emuMMC) and if I'm asked to Reboot to Sept I press power or any volume button to do so. Atmosphere appears, Lockpick_RCM restarts and gives me a message that my keys have been saved in /switch/prod.keys of my SD card. Like my NAND backup I save this file on my PC for backup.

Day to day operation
From now on I'm staying in CFW emuMMC, the Switch just goes to sleep when not in use and wakes up in CFW emuMMC. If I need to fully shut it down I'll need to go through the I press power with + held down and in the SX OS menu I select Options -> SX Core -> Cleanup , from Payloads I select Hekate, then in Hekate -> Launch and select CFW (EMUMMC) to get back into Atmosphere CFW. Under no circumstances should I enable Auto-RCM or anything that automatically puts the Switch in RCM mode.
Edit: after I get my latest sigpatches for Atmosphere installed I might get errors when installing via GoldLeaf. What seems to work is the following: I press power with + held down and in the SX OS menu I select Options -> SX Core -> Cleanup , from Payloads I select Hekate, then in Hekate instead of launching emmc from Launch I select Payloads and select fusee-primary. This launches Atmosphere and the sigpatches now work.

Slow glitching at boot: At first you'll see the chip glitch real fast, only pulsing 3-4 times at blue colour before getting to green. After you install latest 3.0.5 SX OS it will take close to a full minute blinking in blue (mine takes around 1 min 15 secs) before turning green. This is NOT an error/problem, let it blink blue until it gets to green (or pink or red if there's a problem). Latest SX OS is turning off the modchip completely so it doesn't waste battery on standby so it keeps no glitching info from previous boots and has to do the "learning" process again.

And some questions I couldn't find answers to:
When I turn Switch on without pushing the + volume button and I have SX Core installed, what happens? Does it just load OFW Sysnand like it would without a modchip?

If for some reason the Switch completely runs out of battery is there some process I should do or do I directly leave it on dock for charging?

I saw some installation tutorials mentioned creating a separate FAT32 partition of around 600MB at the start of the SD card where all programs would reside (Atmosphere, Hekate, SX OS, other Homebrew). I'm guessing this is purely for organizing them separately from games and does not improve compatibility/speed, right?

HenryMin said:
Not true, Lockpick_RCM doesn't brick any consoles.

Installing atmosphere is simple, just put latest Atmosphere and fusee-primary.bin in sd card, run cleanup in SX Core menu,
and then inject fusee-primary.bin in SX payload menu.

Also, SX emunand will work on atmosphere if you write this thing to /emuMMC/emummc.ini

Code:

[emummc] enabled=1 sector=0x2 path=emuMMC/ER00 id=0x0000 nintendo_path=Emutendo

If you boot without pushing the volume up button, it will auto-boot to SXOS. If you generated emuNAND, it will auto-boot to SXOS emuNAND.

Enter SX boot menu by pressing volume up button, and charge the console. It's the best way to charge it when the console is completely discharged.

Have you done this? I used the the ini to use my sx hidden partition emunand. When I tried to boot fuseeprimary I got a black screen for awhile and did a hard reset.... but when I tried to boot back into sx os emunand it took a very long time. How long does it take for Atmosphere to boot up? I would much rather use Atmosphere than sx because thats what I'm used too.

DPyro · Oct 22, 2020

Just got mine done. First try. Good thing too cause I used the last of the thermal paste.

Yes, I was lazy and didn't remove all the excess paste. It worked out better as it acted as an adhesive for the mod.

I used MG Chemicals leaded solder.

DragarX · Oct 23, 2020

switchitup said:
Have you done this? I used the the ini to use my sx hidden partition emunand. When I tried to boot fuseeprimary I got a black screen for awhile and did a hard reset.... but when I tried to boot back into sx os emunand it took a very long time. How long does it take for Atmosphere to boot up? I would much rather use Atmosphere than sx because thats what I'm used too.

The only way to boot atmosphere is the go to sx boot menu, select cleanup and load the payload from there. As long as you stay in atmosphere and reboot to payload it should boot instantly. As soon as you do a full power down or reboot to sx os the chip will need to learn it's glitching process again which is why it takes so long to boot. This will only happen when going back to sx or doing a full power down so it shouldn't be a big issue as long as you aren't switching os's every 5 minutes.

switchitup · Oct 23, 2020

DragarX said:
The only way to boot atmosphere is the go to sx boot menu, select cleanup and load the payload from there. As long as you stay in atmosphere and reboot to payload it should boot instantly. As soon as you do a full power down or reboot to sx os the chip will need to learn it's glitching process again which is why it takes so long to boot. This will only happen when going back to sx or doing a full power down so it shouldn't be a big issue as long as you aren't switching os's every 5 minutes.

So I cant boot fuseeprimary from hekete?

Hacking Question Installing Atmosphere on SX Core (v1 iPatched). Is this the correct way?

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