Acer Webcam blind

[Attitude]

I have an Acer Aspire 4710z laptop that's only a month old, running Windows Xp (Home, 32-bit). It has an in-built Crystal Eye webcam and accompanying software, which I used regularly.

About a week ago the webcam suddenly died. Yesterday I tried using it again, and I got a Camera Not Found error. After Googling and looking up Acer's help for answers (most of which applied to other laptops and were in other languages), I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers many, many times. I even tried the trick of emptying my Pictures folder.

Once in that whole mess did the webcam work again. But only once. Now, even though I have the correct drivers installed when i run Acer Crystal Eye Webcam the application starts but camera doesnt start. It simply goes blind.

What am I missing? Is my webcam forever buggered? I've tried updating the drivers (Bison) via Windows but it says it's up to date.

 

[Dave]

Is the loaded Acer that was on the ShopNBC New Year's special (came with wireless router and printer)? Looked like a nice deal.

Is this webcam mounted on the laptop with a swivel connection? It sounds like it could be a loose or bad connection.

Maybe someone else has more experience around this.

Dave

 

[Peter.Cort]

i think its one of the webcam's that is mounted right in the top of the lcd pannel like they have in the mac books and some other notebooks now. so it could be a loose connection, but if it isn't a built in webcam your gonna have to open up the laptop and check it out, which could quite possibly void any warrenty you might have on it (if there is one) and then from there if you break it your toast.

so if you can take it back to where you got it and demand you get it fixed for free