2013 Archives

[RhinoCan]

Which drivers do I need to replace to deal with a webcam issue? My mother's webcam is no longer detectable in Windows 7 (64-bit). I'd like to replace the drivers and I have her SNID but I don't see anything that looks like webcam drivers in the list of drivers available for her Aspire. The only one that even comes close is the VGA driver but I assume that is for the display, not the webcam. Can someone tell me which driver I'm looking for?

[ScottyC]

If the drivers are at fault you would still see the device, it would just give you a warning of "unknown device". It's more likely that the camera's disconnected than the drivers are to blame. On the website you'd be looking for Acer Crystal Eye under Applications, but I seriously doubt it's the issue.

[RhinoCan]

The laptop IS getting an "unknown device" message (code 43). Isn't updating the drivers the best solution for that? If not, what would you suggest?

I didn't realize that there were applications that would address this problem so your suggestion was very helpful except for one thing: when I look at the applications for the Aspire, I see three different webcam programs, one for Chicony, one for Suyin and one for LiteOn. I've never heard of the first two but I know LiteOn is a hardware manufacturer so I assume the others are too. But how do I determine which of the three my mother has? I had thought/hoped that the SNID would make it crystal clear what drivers/applications I need but it seems that this laptop model used three different manufacturers to supply webcams.

[RhinoCan]

Followup question: How does the webcam get disconnected? It is built into the bezel of the screen and there are no exposed wires. I'm certain my mother has not been attempting to disassemble the laptop so I'm at a loss to understand how it could get disconnected. Is there some way to do it by accident that my mother could have stumbled on?

I know I once turned off the touchpad on MY laptop by clicking on Fn-F9 (I have an ASUS laptop). Could she have disabled the webcam in a similar way?

[ScottyC]

You're correct, Acer used multiple suppliers for webcams for this device. HERE is the Acer hardware detection utility that you can use to detect which hardware vendor created the device in your system. If it's not listed I would say download one of each, considering they're less than 4MB each.