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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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Inaki

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fallguy441 said:
I currently have lead free solder I bought for 5 euros. I have no experience with leaded solder, but I am willing to learn if it is that much better.
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You need 30-40 degrees Celsius more temperature for melting/using lead free solder. It is a bit easier to use leaded solder and it makes supposedly better contact and doesn't deteriorate with time. I have done 3 installs with lead free solder and 2 with leaded solder, no big difference, honestly. Leaded solder does have better adherence and is stronger for standing mechanical stress and so on, but this is a thing I think has been blown out of proportion, but I don't know...
 
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Was able to find some listings on taobao. The cheapest one I found was roughly 200 USD.

Interesting thing is that there are some sellers who are offering circuit schematics for sale.

Hopefully the price will decrease down the road, since it is way out of my budget at the moment. Would also be nice to see someone test them.
 
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pinkbeetle said:
Was able to find some listings on taobao. The cheapest one I found was roughly 200 USD.

Interesting thing is that there are some sellers who are offering circuit schematics for sale.

Hopefully the price will decrease down the road, since it is way out of my budget at the moment. Would also be nice to see someone test them.
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Would you please a links for those who sell the circuit schematics?
 
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pinkbeetle said:
Was able to find some listings on taobao. The cheapest one I found was roughly 200 USD.

Interesting thing is that there are some sellers who are offering circuit schematics for sale.

Hopefully the price will decrease down the road, since it is way out of my budget at the moment. Would also be nice to see someone test them.
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There's a seller on Aliexpress selling the new clones for $200 each and $540 for 3 ($180 each). Honestly at those prices you might as well get an unpatched tablet/console instead. Unpatched tablets are being sold for ~$230 and doesn't require soldering + disassembling the switch.
 
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thesjaakspoiler

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Inaki said:
Regular doesn't have the small FPGA chip, but so was the original SX Core ( ! ), so, I don't know, something looks odd there...
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All of the original SX modchips do have that FPGA. I guess injecting the payload after glitching the Tegra requires much more speed than the MCU (the biggest chip on the board) can handle. The MCU is using the FPGA for some timing to glitch the Tegra and inject some custom data.

The difference between the HWFLY and the HMFLY Pro version is that they locked down the FPGA for the normal HWFLY.
If you buy the Pro, the FPGA is in a mode where it can still be reprogrammed with a new firmware.
This would only be interesting if Nintendo somehow found a way to fix this exploit.
What I can't make up is whether they also locked down the MCU.
That would make it impossible to use Spacecraft.

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Inaki said:
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..
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Looking at the SpacecraftNX code, the MCU does determine the point when to glitch.
But it seems to be the FPGA which uses those timings to do the actual glitching and then the FPGA seems to provide some data to the
Tegra that used to come from the eMMC.
The FPGA has some small memory buffer.
In the source code I see that the MCU sends some custom data to the FPGA.
I presume the clockspeeds at which the eMMC operates are just too fast for an MCU and that they use the FPGA for this.

Someone published an interesting paper about voltage glitching the PS Vita and injection some other data to exploit it.
That looks very similar to this exploit.
 
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BigBoy said:
There's a seller on Aliexpress selling the new clones for $200 each and $540 for 3 ($180 each). Honestly at those prices you might as well get an unpatched tablet/console instead. Unpatched tablets are being sold for ~$230 and doesn't require soldering + disassembling the switch.
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Indeed, but if you want to use them on limited edition switches like the animal crossing one, then that's still a reasonable price. And if they manage to bring a switch lite version, they will probable charge even more.

Here is where the real battle against Nintendo begins. As it could be their doom.
 
TomSwitch

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Expansive maybe because they are also illegal in China. Bear in mind that Switch is sold in China and there is Chinese business interest to stop these product from being sold in China. IP rights being enforced in China will be more common. It's inevitable.
 
paulzheng

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hope the imitation modchip's price would be less than 200 RMB in this year.

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TomSwitch said:
Expansive maybe because they are also illegal in China. Bear in mind that Switch is sold in China and there is Chinese business interest to stop these product from being sold in China. IP rights being enforced in China will be more common. It's inevitable.
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yes, some people have been prosecuted for soldering modchip in switch,
for example, a gaming store was imposed a fine by local court around 200,000 RMB a couple of months ago.
 
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