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1401 Probe 2.2.0

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@nullmoth nullmoth released this 13 Oct 20:37
· 3 commits to main since this release
v2.2.0
7020266

What changed in this version

The whole machine, from every side: the stick, Windows, and macOS.

  • New: scan from Windows. In the app, click "Scan this PC from Windows (about 3 minutes)". It records the
    processor, graphics, displays, firmware tables, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, network, sound, battery and every device with its
    IDs and driver, and puts one .zip on your Desktop to send. It only reads and never goes online.
  • New: scan a Mac. bash 1401-probe-mac.sh --scan scans a Mac or Nullintosh (no password, about a minute).
  • Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips in depth. Each chip's firmware version and what it can do, and the Bluetooth
    controller's version and features. This step is now included by default: press N at the question to skip it.
  • Processors: the chip's family name (Tiger Lake, Vermeer, Granite Ridge and so on), power and turbo limits,
    frequency and sleep-state tables, and the timer speed measured.
  • Intel integrated graphics: what Linux's driver reports about the GPU and a snapshot of its display registers.
  • Older NVIDIA cards (Kepler: GTX 600/700, Quadro K, Tesla K): NVIDIA's own 470 driver is back on the stick, patched
    to run on the new kernel, so the trace records NVIDIA's own start-up on these cards too, not only the open-source one.
  • The Mac and Linux tools are attached to the GitHub release (the site's links to them were broken).
  • Never saved, on any of the three: serial numbers, UUIDs, network and Bluetooth addresses, Wi-Fi network names,
    the names of paired devices, and the computer's and your user's names.

Every earlier version stays up, with its hashes, on the releases page and at https://nullmothsystems.com/probe

About 1401 Probe

Free, offline, and open source.

1401 Probe turns a USB stick into a small scanner for your PC. You start the PC from the stick, it reads what
hardware the machine has, saves one report to the stick, and turns the PC off. Nothing leaves your computer unless
you upload the report yourself. Every report shows us what 1401 needs to support, so if you run it: thank you.

The same how-to, with the rest of the details, is on the site: https://nullmothsystems.com/probe

Downloads

File What it is SHA-256
1401-Probe-Setup.exe The Windows app. It makes the stick for you. Start here. 9c16843b634b0a778aa5b379a202570eb4aa2a0885d6e06298b92a37fa7f681b
1401-probe-img.zip The raw stick image, if you don't have Windows or want to flash it yourself 35edfb7500a86a6a7052454ce64be5a0b9b94731f1390073847c23232187eb15
1401-probe-mac.sh On a Mac: makes the stick (bash 1401-probe-mac.sh) and scans the Mac itself (bash 1401-probe-mac.sh --scan) d709f2491c842a529350a09191c9f2c5e44442feb27a911e8990d05d9cf93abc
1401-probe-linux.py On Linux: makes the stick (python3 1401-probe-linux.py) 68bdf61650ec70ce4b4adc8d82ce9826ddba3079dc203d465114f2ab81fef706
SHA256SUMS.txt The installer and stick-image hashes in one file

Check the installer before you run it

The installer isn't code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen will warn you about it. Before you click past that,
make sure the file is really ours. Its fingerprint is published in DNS, signed with DNSSEC, on a different system
from this download:

dig +short TXT _probe-sha256.nullmothsystems.com

Or on Windows, in PowerShell:

(Resolve-DnsName -Type TXT _probe-sha256.nullmothsystems.com).Strings

Then hash the file you downloaded, from the folder you saved it in:

Get-FileHash .\1401-Probe-Setup.exe

The two SHA-256 values should match exactly. If they don't, don't run it.

What you need

  • The Windows PC you want to scan
  • A USB stick, 1 GB or bigger. It gets erased, so copy anything you want off it first.
  • About 15 minutes
  • Secure Boot turned off for the scan. You turn it back on afterwards, and the app walks you through it.

How to use it

  1. Install. Run 1401-Probe-Setup.exe. When SmartScreen says "Windows protected your PC", click More info,
    then Run anyway.

  2. Make the stick. Open 1401 Probe and click Make the scanner USB stick. If BitLocker is on, click Pause
    BitLocker for 3 restarts     first. Pick your stick, tick the box, and click Erase and make the stick. Only USB
    drives show up in the list, so you can't wipe your main drive by accident.

  3. Turn off Secure Boot and start from the stick. Click Restart into BIOS setup. Find Secure Boot (it's
    usually under Boot or Security), set it to Disabled, then save and exit. As the PC starts, press your boot menu
    key and pick the USB stick marked UEFI. Boot menu keys: ASUS F8, MSI F11, Gigabyte F12, ASRock F11, Dell F12,
    HP F9, Lenovo F12, Acer F12. You can also click Restart now and pick the USB stick in the app and choose
    "Use a device". On the stick's menu, pick 1401 Probe - scan this computer. It starts by itself after 5
    seconds.

  4. Let it scan. It takes 2 to 8 minutes. The last step is a graphics test, and the screen can flicker or go
    black for up to 3 minutes. That's normal. When it says DONE, the report is saved and the PC turns itself off.
    If nothing happens for 5 minutes, hold the power button. Everything up to that point is already saved. Start
    from the stick again and pick the normal scan: it skips the step that froze and finishes the rest. If it
    freezes a second time, pick safe scan, which skips the graphics test.

  5. Put your settings back. Go into the BIOS again (usually Del or F2) and set Secure Boot back to Enabled. Back
    in Windows, open 1401 Probe and click I already scanned - find my report. It checks Secure Boot and BitLocker
    for you and offers to turn BitLocker back on. Your boot order was never changed.

  6. Send the report. Optional, but it's the whole point. Click Show both files. The stick's REPORTS folder
    has a .zip and a .txt with the same name, something like Z790-AORUS_i7-13700K_RTX4070_2026-09-25_a3f1.zip.
    You can open both and read them first. Then go to https://nullmothsystems.com/#send, drag both files onto the
    1402 Card Reader, and click Send. Keep the report ID it gives you (NM-XXXXXXXX).

What it does and doesn't do

  • It reads your hardware and writes one report, to its own stick. That's it.
  • It has no network, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth drivers, so it can't connect to anything.
  • Before it scans, it marks every drive except its own stick read-only. It never mounts your internal drives.
  • It never changes BIOS/UEFI settings. Secure Boot is the one setting you change, yourself.
  • Serial numbers, UUIDs, MAC addresses and your Windows product key are removed from the report before it's saved.
  • Nothing is uploaded automatically. Sending the report is up to you.

No Windows?

Download 1401-probe-img.zip, unzip it, and write 1401-probe.img to a USB stick with balenaEtcher, or Rufus in
DD mode. Then do steps 3 and 4, turn Secure Boot back on in your BIOS yourself, and send the two files from the
stick's REPORTS folder like in step 6.

Done with the stick?

Open 1401 Probe, click I already scanned - find my report, then Make it an ordinary USB drive again.

Build it yourself

Everything builds in Docker containers pinned by digest, and nothing gets installed on your machine. From a clone
of this repo:

NM_ALLOW_NO_PRIVATE=1 ./build.sh all

The README has the details and the QEMU test that boots the real stick image.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. The parts it's built from (Linux, GRUB, BusyBox, Python, Alpine packages, firmware files) keep
their own licenses, listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt on every stick. The NullMoth name and moth logo aren't
covered by the GPL (section 7(e)), so a modified version has to drop them.

Found a bug, or a machine it chokes on? Open an issue.

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