Hacking SX Pro, what's the micro USB for?

[tbb043]

The dongle has a USB micro port on one end, and the kit comes with a very short USB micro cable. I got my system up and working but never used the cable (or port) and even in the instructions these didn't seem to be mentioned. The switch only has USB-C so this cable isn't for it. Any idea what this stuff is? It's not for the license, you do that either by online with the switch or moving the micro SD to your PC. It's not for launching, USB-C is used for that. I just find it weird they included a cable you don't need.They aren't expensive but tthey aren't free, so why'd they spend money to include it?

PS please keep on topic, if you hate TX, fine, go post in another thread about it, okay, there are a few to choose from no need to blather on about stolen/brick code here, keep it to the USB stuff I asked.

 

[kamesenin888]

I think is for charging the dongle, also I guess if an update comes it lets you update the dongle

 

[saxon48]

It charges the dongle, as indicated above. The Pro takes only about one minute (maybe even less) to fully charge, which is good for five separate boots of your Switch. One week of standby time, as well.

 

[jakkal]

It charges the dongle, as indicated above. The Pro takes only about one minute (maybe even less) to fully charge, which is good for five separate boots of your Switch. One week of standby time, as well.

it take less than 10 seconds to fully charge

 

[slaphappygamer]

Charging is done from either end.

From their faq

• Q: Huh, two caps, how do they get 'charged'? Do I have now and then plug my dongle into micro-USB cable to charge it, what happens when it runs out of power? — Why not battery instead? — Does it instead drain my Switch battery, what happens if I leave it plugged in.
  A: The SuperCap’s are charged from either usb port ( USB-C or Micro USB ). The caps offer approximately 1 week standby time with enough energy left for one boot, or at least 5 successive boots without the opportunity to auto-charge. Charge to 80% is achieved (automatically) within 1-2 seconds of entry into the Nintendo start menu. We are working reducing that considerably … (see above for why not battery). Because we are powered by s-cap’s we have a very power conscious design.
  Leaving the dongle in the console for more than a minute is pointless but will do no harm in any way to the dongle and drain very little battery ( currently we draw ~25mA but will work on reducing that considerably after ~1-2 minutes charge mode).

Not quite sure why the cord, if you can charge from usbC. Maybe just another way to charge?

 

[kamesenin888]

Charging is done from either end.

From their faq

• Q: Huh, two caps, how do they get 'charged'? Do I have now and then plug my dongle into micro-USB cable to charge it, what happens when it runs out of power? — Why not battery instead? — Does it instead drain my Switch battery, what happens if I leave it plugged in.
  A: The SuperCap’s are charged from either usb port ( USB-C or Micro USB ). The caps offer approximately 1 week standby time with enough energy left for one boot, or at least 5 successive boots without the opportunity to auto-charge. Charge to 80% is achieved (automatically) within 1-2 seconds of entry into the Nintendo start menu. We are working reducing that considerably … (see above for why not battery). Because we are powered by s-cap’s we have a very power conscious design.
  Leaving the dongle in the console for more than a minute is pointless but will do no harm in any way to the dongle and drain very little battery ( currently we draw ~25mA but will work on reducing that considerably after ~1-2 minutes charge mode).

Not quite sure why the cord, if you can charge from usbC. Maybe just another way to charge?

its a usb cable you can use your pc, your cell charger, and other methods

 

[tbb043]

Charging is done from either end.

From their faq

• Q: Huh, two caps, how do they get 'charged'? Do I have now and then plug my dongle into micro-USB cable to charge it, what happens when it runs out of power? — Why not battery instead? — Does it instead drain my Switch battery, what happens if I leave it plugged in.
  A: The SuperCap’s are charged from either usb port ( USB-C or Micro USB ). The caps offer approximately 1 week standby time with enough energy left for one boot, or at least 5 successive boots without the opportunity to auto-charge. Charge to 80% is achieved (automatically) within 1-2 seconds of entry into the Nintendo start menu. We are working reducing that considerably … (see above for why not battery). Because we are powered by s-cap’s we have a very power conscious design.
  Leaving the dongle in the console for more than a minute is pointless but will do no harm in any way to the dongle and drain very little battery ( currently we draw ~25mA but will work on reducing that considerably after ~1-2 minutes charge mode).

Not quite sure why the cord, if you can charge from usbC. Maybe just another way to charge?

I guess if the dongle needs updating beyond what can be done with what goes on the sd card? It's not really needed for charging, being it can charge just from being plugged into the switch, still seems like a bit unnecessary to include. Maybe they just had a bunch sitting around for something else?

 

[Quantumcat]

Not quite sure why the cord, if you can charge from usbC. Maybe just another way to charge?

Probably so that if your Switch has Auto-RCM installed you will be able to charge the dongle to be able to boot the Switch.

 

[djricekcn]

I'm assuming it's too put in payloads but correct me if I'm wrong. If that's also the case, you can only have one payload at a time? His do you write to it since windows doesn't seem to pick it up

 

[Kioku]

It's to charge the dongle. It reads payloads off the SD card in the Switch. "External Payloads". At least that's all I know.

 

[Deleted-351540]

I've plugged the dongle into my PC using that MicroUSB port and a cable. Microsoft attempts to download drivers for it but can't find any. I found it interesting, but otherwise useless. Wonder if I could find a driver for it? Doubt it, but it'd be cool to know exactly what's inside the thing.

 

[softwareengineer]

I've plugged the dongle into my PC using that MicroUSB port and a cable. Microsoft attempts to download drivers for it but can't find any. I found it interesting, but otherwise useless. Wonder if I could find a driver for it? Doubt it, but it'd be cool to know exactly what's inside the thing.

Then with it inserted forget the windows driver finder thing, go straight to device manager and find the device and view it's properties. I forget which screen it's on but one of them will have dropdowns where you can see various details about it, check them out and specifically note the vendor id and hardware id... They might be custom, or it could be recognized as some kind of standard device. They say it's for charging only, but it may also be for upgrading or modifying it's internal firmware or something like that. Like you could maybe flash something to it. Maybe it too could be unTX'd and be reflashed with something that'll do the same job basically but be free software so it can be easily fixed if it gets corrupted or something like that.

Oh: and once you have the vendor id and hardware id, searching them on the internet usually yields results (at least for drivers that windows can't find, that's how I've always found it when it can't (which is pretty common lol windows)

 

[Deleted-351540]

I'll try that tomorrow. I'm in bed now, and it's hard for this cripple to get in and out of bed and into my wheelchair.

 

[slaphappygamer]

Probably so that if your Switch has Auto-RCM installed you will be able to charge the dongle to be able to boot the Switch.

Does autoRCM not activate the USB port? I mean, the port becomes active when the OS is booted?

 

[Quantumcat]

Does autoRCM not activate the USB port? I mean, the port becomes active when the OS is booted?

My understanding is that it will only charge the dongle while in Horizon, and the Switch won't boot up without the payload. So if the dongle is out of juice you can't boot up your Switch at all. Until you charge the dongle so it can send the payload. I could be wrong though.

 

[Draxzelex]

Does autoRCM not activate the USB port? I mean, the port becomes active when the OS is booted?

AutoRCM reduces the charge rate of the Switch when in RCM. If your console is out of battery, this is where it is most noticeable since it will not turn on for a while until its accumulated enough charge. Charging the Switch will turn it on but AutoRCM will boot into RCM (but again, only if there is enough battery). And thus if the console has no battery, it cannot charge the dongle either. See below for full explanation

So, Switch charges and does not charges in RCM. xD

The results (battery was 89%):


The switch can charge normally the battery, if the BCT is intact!
In RCM AND in hekate menu.
*BCT is the boot configuration table that autoRCM corrupts.

Tests showed that it was charging with the same current, as in Horison OS.
The current it was drawing with 89% battery, was 800mA - 1000mA, using Switch wall adapter. On PC, it was the max the hub could give.


------------------------------------


The switch cannot charge normally with a corrupt BCT (AutoRCM).
In hekate, it shows similar behavior (read below).
Extra emphasis on the "normally".

With autoRCM, basically a corrupt BCT, the switch behaves differently.
There are 2 behaviors that I saw when connecting to the switch wall charger:

• Common - It was draining 140-250mA.
• Common (in hekate) - 200mA - 400mA
  
• Rare (normally if you connect charger after powering off from HOS) - Drain of alternating 250mA and 1000mA, with surges of 2.5A.

------------------------------------

Summary - facts:

1. Switch can charge completely normally in RCM or Hekate with a BCT intact
   • The percent % in Horizon OS, after a RCM charge, is not fake.
2. Switch does not charge normally with AutoRCM, a.k.a corrupt BCT.
   1. Either it charges very slowly or sometimes with a broken slow/fast/slow/fast charge pattern:
   2. Or this behavior is current taken from the USB controller or the BPMP (Nvidia's Boot and Power management processor)
   • In AutoRCM, the Charge IC probably can't update the battery calibration file and could make the percent fake.

I don't know for behavior .3 what really happens and what Switch does. This can be easily examined, by connecting a current multimeter between battery and switch and check the readings.

 

[Porkypigs]

Its to charge the capacitors and need be update payload.bin written in the dongle

 

[Deleted-351540]

Then with it inserted forget the windows driver finder thing, go straight to device manager and find the device and view it's properties. I forget which screen it's on but one of them will have dropdowns where you can see various details about it, check them out and specifically note the vendor id and hardware id... They might be custom, or it could be recognized as some kind of standard device. They say it's for charging only, but it may also be for upgrading or modifying it's internal firmware or something like that. Like you could maybe flash something to it. Maybe it too could be unTX'd and be reflashed with something that'll do the same job basically but be free software so it can be easily fixed if it gets corrupted or something like that.

Oh: and once you have the vendor id and hardware id, searching them on the internet usually yields results (at least for drivers that windows can't find, that's how I've always found it when it can't (which is pretty common lol windows)

So, in Device Manager it shows up as "SX Pro dongle". I found that interesting. Otherwise, it doesn't show anything remotely interesting.

Hardware ID's are as follows:
USB\VID_C001&PID_C0DE&REV_0100
USB\VID_C001&PID_C0DE

Searching these ID's literally gets nothing for results. Absolutely nothing. Which tells me this is probably designed by them and not a knockoff of a different board. I'm not even certain you can obtain drivers for the device and even if you could, what can you do with something that probably has no flash storage on it?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Charging is done from either end.

From their faq

• Q: Huh, two caps, how do they get 'charged'? Do I have now and then plug my dongle into micro-USB cable to charge it, what happens when it runs out of power? — Why not battery instead? — Does it instead drain my Switch battery, what happens if I leave it plugged in.
  A: The SuperCap’s are charged from either usb port ( USB-C or Micro USB ). The caps offer approximately 1 week standby time with enough energy left for one boot, or at least 5 successive boots without the opportunity to auto-charge. Charge to 80% is achieved (automatically) within 1-2 seconds of entry into the Nintendo start menu. We are working reducing that considerably … (see above for why not battery). Because we are powered by s-cap’s we have a very power conscious design.
  Leaving the dongle in the console for more than a minute is pointless but will do no harm in any way to the dongle and drain very little battery ( currently we draw ~25mA but will work on reducing that considerably after ~1-2 minutes charge mode).

Not quite sure why the cord, if you can charge from usbC. Maybe just another way to charge?

I think in RCM mode the dongle won't charge. So if you have AutoRCM and your dongle has no power the MicroUSB is needed to charge it. At least that's how I understood what TX said.

AutoRCM reduces the charge rate of the Switch when in RCM. If your console is out of battery, this is where it is most noticeable since it will not turn on for a while until its accumulated enough charge. Charging the Switch will turn it on but AutoRCM will boot into RCM (but again, only if there is enough battery). And thus if the console has no battery, it cannot charge the dongle either. See below for full explanation

This may also be the case. TX weren't entirely clear on why one would ever need to use the MicroUSB to charge up the dongle but it seemed like it had something to do with AutoRCM.

 

[softwareengineer]

So, in Device Manager it shows up as "SX Pro dongle". I found that interesting. Otherwise, it doesn't show anything remotely interesting.

Hardware ID's are as follows:
USB\VID_C001&PID_C0DE&REV_0100
USB\VID_C001&PID_C0DE

Searching these ID's literally gets nothing for results. Absolutely nothing. Which tells me this is probably designed by them and not a knockoff of a different board. I'm not even certain you can obtain drivers for the device and even if you could, what can you do with something that probably has no flash storage on it?

Hmm, are you sure you grabbed it from the right dropdown box selected? Because that only contains the vendor id and not the device id, revision 0100 is the revision not the device id...
It should look more like this:

With the "VEN_XXXX" . & . "DEV_XXXX"

Anyway I found something quite interesting even with just the vendor id. (You're not supposed to look up the whole string as it's given but just extract the vendor id and device id and search those themselves)

I searched "C001 vendor" and this was the first result: https://pci-ids.ucw.cz/read/PC?sort=rid?restrict=c001

Clicking on it (the c001 entry in the list), doesn't yield really any info but it says the vendor / company that makes it is TSI Telsys and it was inserted into that database on 10-06-2008

Now I don't know if this is just TX trolling us with that vendor id, but who TSI Telsys is seems quite interesting:

The first link appears to be Chinese so I can't read it, (Hey haven't people been saying TX is a Chinese company? ) But hold on a second that might not be the right one, because despite the language barrier it appears that site sells eye glasses maybe? lol (it even says that mushed between the Chinese characters towards the end and the site has eye glasses images on it and people wearing them smiling lol)

So that might just coincidentally named company if I'm right about that, the second and other results seem more accurate:

TELEMETRY SYSTEMS?!!! High speed telemetry processing system for commercial communications applications? Related to space-ground communications networks and space agencies? That sounds like some heavy shit and if tx isn't trolling us but that's actually a device from that vendor they've used, then what the heck is that doing in a tx dongle! lol

There could be bigger things going on here than we realize, or tx is just having fun with us with people that look into this shit lol... I do believe if you make a custom device you can set the vendor and device id to whatever you want, so there's that... But if it really is something from this company, then holy shit a device related to space communications and telemetry processing is in the dongle! lol That doesn't mean that TSI have made it specifically for this purpose, it would just mean that tx re-purposed it for this particular application... Or it could mean it is TSI, lol TX == TSI?? maybe Pretty crazy though going from you finding nothing to me finding this!