Guide for the Dell Venue Pro: Diagnostic Screen’s Unlocked Abilities

Venue Pro owners like myself have generally been left out in the cold when it comes to enjoying the Windows Phone OS. Whether it be delays, bugs, or limited access while others have total freedom. Now we can do more with what we have. Until now, all I’ve been able to do is browse general phone and system information like version numbers, battery voltage, and MAC addresses. I came across the code for unlocking the rest of the EM apps functions over at XDA-Developers. 

After you unlock the Diagnostic Menu by dialing *#634# ##634# and hitting “call”. Once inside EM, you are greeted with six menu options, Phone Information, System Information, RD Test, Customer Interface Test, Protocol, and Service Center. You have immediate access to everything except RD Test and Protocol. 

Phone Information is just that. It gives you basic information about your phone, most of which can be found in the “settings” app. System Information gives you MAC addresses for your Bluetooth and WLAN as well as SIM card info and Disk Space. Battery Information like voltage and temperature can be found here as well, however there is no percentage meter(that is found in the RD Test section discusses below). The “Customer Interface Test” is pretty much just a diagnostics tool to see if everything is working on your phone.

Now for the cool stuff. When you try to enter RD Test or Protocol, you will be prompted with a text box. To continue, you must enter the password.  In this case, it’s *#6336#. RD Test unlocks a TON of options, some of the highlights being:

• Bluetooth(Tx Power Test and enable/disable BQB cert.)
• “IsolatedStorageSpeed” Test
• Battery Test (Displays Battery Percentage as well as Remaining/Full Capacity in mAh)
• WiFi (Continuous Packet TX and RX, Set Static IP)
• RF Power Forward Control (adjustable WCDMA and GSM bands and comp. as well as a “Slider Power Control”)
• AMOLED Test
• GPS Configuration (Set Fix mode to Standalone, MS-Based, or MS-Assisted as well as Start State to Cold, Warm, or Hot Start)
• Audio Recorder
• Sensors
  • Light Sensor Config. (ASL Time, Gain, Calibrated LUX)
  • Proximity Sensor Config. (LED Strength, Pulse Count, Diode Select)
• Touch Pad
  • Calibration
  • Touch Config. (Sensitivity, Clip, Power Mode, Noise Suppression
• About EM (unlocks registry editor in read only mode with additional password: *#734#, I would strongly advise against exploring here as you can inadvertently brick your phone if you’re not careful)

The most interesting abilities are the Sensitivity setting, Light Sensor Config., Battery Percentage, and RF Power Forward Control. In the Sensitivity Box you can raise or lower the sensitivity. Oddly enough, the lower the number the more sensitive the screen becomes, not vice versa like you would expect. Honestly haven’t figured out what the settings to the Light Sensor do. RF Power Forward Control warns you that changing the values can damage your handset. Please use caution if you decide to change this setting. I tried both higher and lower comp. settings to the WCDMA radio but neither caused any noticeable affect in bandwidth speed tests. I would recommend against messing with this setting until someone figures out safe settings.

The Protocol Screen is unlocked with the same code(*#6336#) and brings up three options. The only one of note to the average Joe is “Active Feature”. Here you “Fix in Bands”, meaning limit your phone to specific frequencies. Your choices for GSM are 850, 900, 1800, and 1900.  For WCDMA(3G) you can choose from 850, 900, 1700, 1900, and 2000. For T-Mobile USA users, you will want to make sure you keep GSM 850 and 1900 on and 1700/1900 for WCDMA.

As I stated earlier, the list I compiled merely contains the tabs I found intriguing. There are at least twice that many more settings in the EM app that I did not both to list(either because I don’t know what they do or they are simple options like to test the backlight). If you can shed some light as to how to adjust additional settings or help explain what some of the settings mean, please drop us a comment and I’ll update the article to reflect your input!  Enjoy guys!