Thursday, December 9, 2004
Dell X50 Series has Secret Screen Software
Posted by Jonathon Watkins in "SOFTWARE" @ 08:30 PM
Rudolph has evidently been examining his new Dell X50 series more closely than most and has found something very interesting by altering a value in the registry. Before going any further, let me just remind you that editing the Registry directly can be dangerous to your PPC and you should always take a data backup before try to do so. Eric Hess spotted Rudolph's Aximsite post and sent it to us:
"I found that you can enable a hidden contrast applet by going into the registry key 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ControlPanel\Contrast' and renaming the "Redirect" value to "Redirect_" (or rename to something else, or remove it completely). Then soft reset and go to start > settings > system > contrast and adjust the contrast. The only thing is, it doesn't remember the contrast after a soft reset. This should help with reading in the dark -- the screen brightness is too bright when you are in the dark."
I tested this on my X50v using PHM Registry Editor and sure enough, after renaming and soft resetting there is indeed a new icon in the system tab. It's a circle, half black & half white. When you tap it, you get a slider bar and what looks like random noisy lines on the screen, though they can help you determine the correct contrast. The screen changes colour as you drag the slider across, from yellow to while and on to grey. I wonder what this does for the power consumption, as the screen can get a lot dimmer than the lowest brightness setting. However, I found that after a soft reset, the contrast was always set to maximum, giving the screen a yellow tinge. After playing with it for a bit, I reset the registry key back to default, soft reset and all was well again. I will keep a note of the registry value, should I ever need to adjust the contrast. Rudolph verified that this registry hack does not work on the iPAQ hx4700. I wonder what else is hidden away for some enterprising soul to find. Remember, any registry editing you do is at your own risk. You have been warned! ;-)
edit: This value appears to be present in many other PPCs, though it does not seem to work for most. Rudolf also found how to control the hidden treble/bass/3d effects on the X50 series. Nice work!
"I found that you can enable a hidden contrast applet by going into the registry key 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ControlPanel\Contrast' and renaming the "Redirect" value to "Redirect_" (or rename to something else, or remove it completely). Then soft reset and go to start > settings > system > contrast and adjust the contrast. The only thing is, it doesn't remember the contrast after a soft reset. This should help with reading in the dark -- the screen brightness is too bright when you are in the dark."
I tested this on my X50v using PHM Registry Editor and sure enough, after renaming and soft resetting there is indeed a new icon in the system tab. It's a circle, half black & half white. When you tap it, you get a slider bar and what looks like random noisy lines on the screen, though they can help you determine the correct contrast. The screen changes colour as you drag the slider across, from yellow to while and on to grey. I wonder what this does for the power consumption, as the screen can get a lot dimmer than the lowest brightness setting. However, I found that after a soft reset, the contrast was always set to maximum, giving the screen a yellow tinge. After playing with it for a bit, I reset the registry key back to default, soft reset and all was well again. I will keep a note of the registry value, should I ever need to adjust the contrast. Rudolph verified that this registry hack does not work on the iPAQ hx4700. I wonder what else is hidden away for some enterprising soul to find. Remember, any registry editing you do is at your own risk. You have been warned! ;-)
edit: This value appears to be present in many other PPCs, though it does not seem to work for most. Rudolf also found how to control the hidden treble/bass/3d effects on the X50 series. Nice work!
