Secret Tv Service Modes Revealed

8/4/2019 Secret Tv Service Modes Revealed

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Secret TV Service Modes revealed! 2000 The Fixer

This file originated at www.artofhacking.com.

Did you know you can screw Future Shop, Circuit City and

other

electronics stores TV sales departments with just a few

keypresses?

Most TVs sold today have digital service menus, hidden and

completely

unknown to the consumer. Not quite an easter egg, because

these

'features' are well known to TV servicemen. And heaven

knows, I'm

about to do their industry a favor by publishing this file.

Once you are in a service menu you can do all kinds of things

to the

TV that used to need a screwdriver and the cover off. Youcan turn

the Horizontal Hold way over until the TV shuts down -

requiring a new

memory chip to correct. You can totally de-align the tuner.

You can

change the colour temperature so it looks like an old

fashioned sienna

photograph. You can put its user menus in a foreign language,

and on

some models that can't be undone. Oftentimes, your changes

can only

be corrected by a costly visit from a senior level

technician, someonethe store isn't likely to have on staff. Do this to 8 or 10

TVs and

your actions will cost the store a LOT of money. The

manufacturer and

distribution network also must bear the costs of this, unless

of

course you're caught.

Here are some TVs you can screw with:

RCA and G.E. (most models after '94): Turn the TV on.

Hold down MENU

and hit POWER and VOL+. Now you're in the service mode,looking at

parameter 0. It will say:

P00 V00

Use the VOL+ key to change the value (V number) to 76.

This has to be

done before you can do anything else; it's sort of a

password.

Once P00 is set to V76 you can use the Channel + and

Clannel - buttons

to select from the first 12 parameters. P13 is anotherpassword - set
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to 77 to get higher parameters. Depending on the model,

another one a

couple of dozen parameters up will require a password of

78. This

varies by model but you will know when you have found it

because you

won't be able to advance past it.

The first parameter, P01, is probably the quickest and

easiest to

work. It is the Horizontal Frequency control. When you

select it,

the TV will lose horizontal sync. Turn it all the way

down or all the

way up with VOL- or VOL+ and then get out of setup (if the

TV hasn't

shut itself off by then) with the power button.

Here are the parameter tables:

P00 Password (Must set to 76) P14 PLL Tuning

P01 Horizontal Frequency P15 4.58 MHz Trap

P02 Horizontal Phase P16 Video Level

P03 EW DC (Width) P17 FM Level

P04 EW Amplitude P18 B+ Trim

P05 Vertical DC P19 RF AGC Chan 6

P06 Vertical Size P20 RF AGC Band 1

P07 Red Bias P21 RF AGC Band 2

P08 Green Bias P22 RF AGC Band 3

P09 Blue Bias P23 D-PIP Chroma

P10 Red Drive P24 D-PIP tint

P11 Green Drive P25 D-PIP bright

P12 Blue Drive P26 D-PIP contrastP13 Password (Must set to 77) P27 Factory Tint

P28 Password (Must set to 78)

P100-156 - Tuner alignment parameters. If you fuck with

these, the

tuner will have to be aligned by a professional.

PANASONIC:

Panasonic TV's after 1996 can be set to "Serviceman Mode"

with thefollowing remote control sequence:

First, select the SET-UP icon and select CABLE mode.

Then, select the TIMER icon and set the SLEEP timer for 30

minutes.

Next, press the ACTION button twice to get out of the

menus.

Now, change to channel 124.

Then, adjust the volume to minimum (0).


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You're almost there - Hit the VOL down button on the TV

itself (not on

the remote) and a red "CHK" should appear in the upper

corner.

Now, if you press the ACTION and VOLUME DOWN buttons

(again, on theTV, not the remote) you will toggle between AGING and

SERVICEMAN modes.

Select Serviceman mode. The POWER button on the remote

control will

select one of the five Serviceman Adjustment modes.

The modes are:

B - Serviceman VCJ SUB Adjustments. These include sub-

tint,

sub-color, sub-brightness, sub-contrast,

colorkiller/ABL/gamma,audio and video adjustment, and vertical size.

C - Serviceman VCJ Cut-off adjustments. These include

Red, Green

and Blue cut-off, red and blue drive, automatic

fine tuning

(AFT), RF AGC (RF gain control), horizontal center,

beam limit,

etc.

S - Serviceman Options Adjustments. These involce the

PIP and

clock.

M - Serviceman MTS (Stereo/SAP) adjustments.

CHK - the mode you first entered. Normal picture and

sound, lets

you check things over and still have a hotkey

into the

service menu.

There is one more adjustment that isn't in the five

modes, it's

global. When in either the yellow or red CHK mode, you

can pressRECALL on the remote control to enter the purity firld

check mode.

This lets you select a pure white, red, green, or blue

screen. A

good thing to walk away from if you just want to

temporarily freak

out the floor manager, but it will be fixed as soon as

the TV is

turned off. Oh well.

To get out of Serviceman mode, press ACTION and POWER

on the remote

cimultaneously for at least 2 seconds. The TV willmomentarily


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shut off and then comes back on.

JVC:

Newer ones with the full colour menus...

Go into the menu, select CLOCK SET, and you will get the

clock set

menu. Set the clock to 3:21 AM. As soon as you select

"Start Clock",

you see a flashing "THANK YOU". WHILE THIS IS STILL

FLASHING hit MUTE

then UP/DOWN. You will then be in a service menu which

will let you

change all kinds of neat things.

The service menu on new JVC televisions is quite self

explanatory, so

I will not include a walkthrough here.

ZENITH:

I think this might work on Goldstar TVs as well, since

both Zenith and

Goldstar are the same company, LG Electronics.

Hold the MENU button. The menu will come up and then

after a few

seconds will go away. Now let go of the MENU button and

enter

9 8 7 6 Enter

You will get a service menu that varies widely depending

on model, so

I won't include a walkthrough here. The ones I tried were

fairly

self-explanatory.

Documents

Secret Tv Service Modes Revealed