Topic: Webcam unpluigged

[Clive]

My sister-in-law has an Acer netbook which worked fine when I handed it over to her ...no really!    Now it has lost the built-in webcam claiming that it is unplugged.  I can't even find the thing in Devices.  What can have gone wrong with it?   

[Simon]

Could she have dropped it, and it really has become unplugged? 

[pctech]

Sounds like damage caused by a drop to me.

[Clive]

That's worrying.  Everything else appears to be working OK with it. 

[Simon]

Is the webcam itself removable from the laptop, or solidly built in?

[Rodders]

What model of Acer lappy is it, and what OS is it running?

Once we can identify the hardware, we'll then be able to identify the driver software required, and start making some really wacky suggestions.

Hope this works helps.

[Clive]

It's an Acer eMachines E350 10.1 inch Netbook (Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz, 2GB, 160GB, WLAN, Webcam, Win 7 Starter) - Black.  I think it's more likely to be a driver issue rather than a drop.  Possibly caused by a flurry of Windows updates? 

[Simon]

Over to you, Rod. 

[Rodders]

1 GB RAM, eh?  Oh deary me.  OK, assuming your sis has already backed-up any stuff she wants to keep, does the Acer have a Recovery partition that might enable you to restore the machine to 'factory' settings?

I found the eMachines website to be a bit light on support and useful info, but you might have better luck.

[Simon]

Is this any help?

http://drp.su/drivers/notebooks/?v=eMachines&m=eM350&id=1556&l=en

[Rodders]

Only if we can discover whether the webcam is a Suyin or a Liteon.  Got a pin?   

[Clive]

Yes, I believe it does have a recovery to factory settings, so that's a very good idea since all she has on it is Skype and Open Office.  It actually has 2Gb of RAM because I fitted a replacement chip.  I'll collect it from her later this week.

[Rik]

The driver is certainly where I'd start looking, Clive.

[Clive]