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webcam issue with pacakrdbell easynote TJ68

timeless

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as the subject says l have a problem with a PackardBell Easynote TJ68 laptop.. annoyingly its just gone out of warranty as l was given it last year as a birthday present by my grandparents...

long story short, the webcam seems to of stopped working.. yesterday l installed MSN messenger so l could video chat with a friend on his xbox, at that point it worked when we tested.

l booted up a few hours ago to run some updates as l boot up every so often to make sure my virus scanner is up to date and also decided to upgrade skype.. shortly after l noticed that the webcam program was showing a fuzzy screen, black in the centre and weird fuzzy colour around the edges which eventually turned white..

device manager says the driver is ok and l have removed it and readded.. but all it gives me now is just a black screen on anything that uses the webcam (MSN messenger, Skype and the webcam config software) lm currently out of ideas since most of the drivers l have seen and on the packard bell site are older than the version l have which wont let me install... anyone have any ideas because this problem is annoying the hell out of me.
 
You could also try removing and reinstalling the video driver as the problem could be caused by a conflict but, as usual, make sure you pick a video driver specific to your laptop (manufacturer's site) as otherwise it may not recognise some features.

Alternatively you could try your luck with the manufacturer's RMA solution and see if they'll help out. Indeed I'd do some Google searches to see if it's a common fault as they'll often fix common faults/flaws regardless of whether or not you're still under warranty. My point is, it never hurts to ask. I've gotten phones and laptops fixed that are out of warranty before.

Also find some other web-cam software and check to make sure that the problem is being replicated in those.
 
If it comes down to it...

Uninstall one by one everything web cam related then everything audio and driver related if needed, including video and audio codecs, display drivers, sound drivers etc etc... reboot after uninstalling each thing and check the webcam.

After uninstalling an application if it makes no difference reinstall it, and then move on to the next item to uninstall and repeat over.

Personally from the description it sounds like the webcam has died, especially if there is no type of moving image being displayed when you have it active.

If there is an image even a fuzzy/blur/hazy mess which moves when you move infront of the camera then it is likely to be some type of software conflict and the only way to solve it may be the long drawn out process i mention.

Also to make sure its not a driver related specifically to the camera.... If the camera has a built in Mic try testing that on its own. Some laptops have a Mic separate from the webcam others have it built in which sometimes uses the same driver or atleast part of the webcams driver package.

Also dont rely on Packard Bells site for the latest drivers for things like that, look in device manager at what the webcam is listed as (view the driver/system files it uses) and from that you will have a better idea of the exact model of webcam and probably be able to get via a bit of googling more upto date drivers than you or Packard bell currently have.
 
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couldnt find updated drivers online, seems the laptop driver disk (part of the restore ones l had to create) had the latest which were installed..

sadly lve been through every suggestion as they are the usual suspects tho l think some of truthforfrees suggestions go slightly too far lol, the problem is video related, so removing sound drivers wouldnt be productive imho. tho lve pretty much ininstalled etc and tried reinstalling.. the last thing l can currently think of is restoring them system to factory default.
 
Sounding more and more like a hardware failure :( . Typical of the cam to fail just outside of warranty. Not saying that some people build their kit to fail but..
 
This may help...
http://global-download.packardbell.com/FilesDownload\HWID\HWVendorDetection.exe
That should detect and list the hardware in your machine which may assist in search terms to use looking for updated drivers.

Default drivers (probably not the latest) for your machine are here...
http://www.packardbell.co.uk/pb/en/GB/content/download
Click...
Notebook > Easynote > EN TJ68
Though you probably knew that :)

Personally im guessing the webcam is dead or if lucky and its a physical problem maybe a wire inside is just loose.

If its driver related my first step looking at that list of drivers would be grabbing the latest Intel and Nvidia VGA drivers from their respective sites.
With regards to the webcam thats probably a long (and horrid) session googling looking for what appears to be "Chicony" or "Suyin" based device both of which im guessing are Chinese and most sites will probably be Chinese, but hey its a nice fun adventure :D
 
actually first thing l did was visit the packard bell site.. the weird thing about the dirivers is that my sister reports they are older than the ones installed.. which kinda doesnt make allot of sense.
 
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actually first thing l did was visit the packard bell site.. the weird thing about the dirivers is that my sister reports they are older than the ones installed.. which kinda doesnt make allot of sense.

Maybe the oh so wonderful *cough* windows update has tampered with what driver revisions were originally on there... I cant remember the amount of times ive had to tell it NO to downloading some driver for my Nvidia card.

Also remember a newer driver does not always equal better for all hardware.
 
l dont think it is a new driver, there is no rollback it just stopped working the day after updating skype and installing live messenger.. the only other major change is l updated my licence on my firewall/virus software...
 
Possible there is a clash with messenger and skype, wouldnt shock me if one or the other came with its own drivers and its cause a conflict of some sort.
Have you tried uninstalling things and going back to as near as possible a state the system was in when things worked?
 
tried that, the cam was working when l installed msn, as l tested its connectivity with an xbox with a kinnect. l did mess about with the above links posted and that detector program does detect my cam tho windows obviously does too..
 
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Heres an idea i thought of this evening.........

Download a live distro of a linux package like Ubuntu, boot that up via the cd and run it as live see you dont have to install it or fiddle with the windows install and see if the cam works in that (assuming of course there are linux installs which have drivers included for you cam).......... If it does work you then know its a windows software or driver issue, if it doesnt you know the cam is then dead.

Doesnt solve the issue but atleast may narrow it down more.
 
l had already contemplated that idea, but have not found a live CD that comes with the drivers l require..
 
The latest ubuntu 11.04 or 11.10 beta should work, if it doesnt have drivers that recognise your cam by default its system settings and additional hardware should have it listed for download.
Ubuntu software centre will also point you to more apps than you can imagine for video chat and messaging needs :)

Looking at this...
http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/catalog/category/CAPTURE
It supports a fair few chicony based webcams in laptops and Suyin by default which is the model of the cam in your laptop.

Definately worth a try IMO.
 
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