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XPS2 LED control via commandline

post #1 of 14
4/22/05 at 5:44am
Thread Starter 
The program to control the LED is called Gaming.exe located in the Quickset folder. I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to change the LED colors via a command line. I know it sounds silly, but i'd like to be able to have icons on my desktop to turn them off, change colors and other things.

Thanks
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post #2 of 14
4/22/05 at 5:49am
If only Dell were to open source the LED source then there will be lots of plugins around... like the very often asked "can the LEDs dance to my music?", or even use the LEDs to display GPU/CPU speed... ha ahaa

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post #3 of 14
4/22/05 at 2:24pm

Softwate LED control

I will bet this is right around the corner !!!!
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post #4 of 14
4/22/05 at 3:18pm
There are a few easy ways of finding out how.
- ApiMonitor
-RegitryMonitor
-FileMonitor

etc.. hook them to the process /exe doing it.. u might get some visibility..

also.. you can disassemble the exe / file to see what registers or location need to be manipulated.

once u have DISSECTED the 'items'...

then you can write a little app.. to do so..
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post #5 of 14
4/22/05 at 11:19pm
In windows, this should be fairly easy. All the communication is done through the APPDRV.sys device driver. A CreateFileA for \\.\APPDRV should open it and then control through DeviceIOControl. The above APIMONITOR app can easily show the buffers going into and out of the device driver.

It seems the control code is 0x22209C
The buffer is 22 bytes long. The same buffer is used for in and out.

The first 9 bytes have data, the last are all 0.

Bytes 1 - 4 : 04000600 Don't know what these are.
Bytes 5-7 : Led color for the three zones
Byte 8: brightness
Byte 9: save as bootup value (1/0)

Unfortunately, that doesn't help me much since I'm looking for a linux solution. I'm assuming the device driver interprets that buffer into something else and writes to the SM bios. The good news is the device driver is only 16K in size, not 550K like gaming.exe. That should be a lot less work for someone that is good with a disassembler and knows something about device drivers. Unfortunately, that's not me. :-(

Dan
iXPS Gen 2
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post #6 of 14
4/22/05 at 11:39pm
Thread Starter 
Wow, since i'm not a coder, there is 0% chance for me to use that great info into reality. How much would you want in $ to write us a command line exe for that?
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post #7 of 14
4/23/05 at 6:14am
If someone can do the groundwork of investigation .. I think it is too easy to do. I can do it... for you.. no charge . But the analysis and hooking into determining what method and dll / exe calls are being made might take a bit of effort.

This can be done without any coding skills.
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post #8 of 14
4/23/05 at 6:57am
Maybe the DELL lurkers who are here might help. NAHH..that would mean providing good customer service and support to end users.
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post #9 of 14
4/23/05 at 11:33am
If no-one does it by next weekend, I'll give it a try. The problem is I have no experience writing Windows programs. All my experience is with OS/2, Linux, and Java. The bigger problem, however, is I don't have any sort of compiler for Windows. I'll poke around at work and see if I can borrow a MSVC 7.1 CD for next weekend.

Dan
iXPS Gen 2
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post #10 of 14
2/19/06 at 10:04pm

Program available

In case anyone is stilling following this thread: I used the excellent tips from user jdkulp and created a simple program in C that allows you to modify the LEDs on the Dell XPS from the command line.

The solution is available both in C-code (about 100 LOC) and an executable from my blog. Now I can do "xps_led_control -front 1 -top 3 -side 3 -bright 3" from the command line.

Enjoy!
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post #11 of 14
2/19/06 at 10:10pm
I'll take it... My M170 is on the way... thanx!
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post #12 of 14
2/19/06 at 10:43pm
Wow, talk about reviving an old thread
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post #13 of 14
2/19/06 at 10:58pm
thanx if i every get a xps 170 i will use this thanx
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post #14 of 14
4/20/06 at 12:57pm

winamp plug

check this: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?postid=1774599
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