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. You can 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, someone the 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 another password - set

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 P01 P02 P03 P04 P05 P06 P07 P08 P09 P10 P11 P12 P13 Password (Must set to 76) Horizontal Frequency Horizontal Phase EW DC (Width) EW Amplitude Vertical DC Vertical Size Red Bias Green Bias Blue Bias Red Drive Green Drive Blue Drive Password (Must set to 77) P14 P15 P16 P17 P18 P19 P20 P21 P22 P23 P24 P25 P26 P27 PLL Tuning 4.58 MHz Trap Video Level FM Level B+ Trim RF AGC Chan 6 RF AGC Band 1 RF AGC Band 2 RF AGC Band 3 D-PIP Chroma D-PIP tint D-PIP bright D-PIP contrast 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 the following 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).

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 the TV, 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. tint, These include sub-

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. 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 press RECALL 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 will momentarily These involce the

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. after a few seconds will go away. enter 9 8 7 The menu will come up and then Now let go of the MENU button and 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.