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bohica

I have had this Sony VGN-AR21M for a couple of years and suddenly the Motion Eye camera has stopped working. I can no longer find it under Scanners and Cameras and skype says it cannot find a video device. I tried rescanning for hardware and nothing was found. In device manager all I have that looks suspicious is under "universal serial bus controllers" there is a single "unknown device" and when double clicked just says no drivers are installed for this device. I do have c:\drivers\Camera\VGP-VCC2 but even though there is a 5U870CAP.inf in there I cannot seem to use it.

In case it matters winver says Version 5.1 (Build 2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.080814-1236 : Service Pack 3.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Martin

Blencogo

Hi Martin,

Try and reinstall the driver from Device Manager.

In Device Manager, right-click on the Unknown USB Device and choose 'Update Driver'.
Choose 'No, not this time' -> 'Install from List or Specific Location' -> 'Don't Search, I will choose a driver to install' -> 'Have Disc' and browse to C:\Drivers\Camera\VGP-VCC2\5U870CAP.inf

Good Luck.

bohica

I'm not sure the unknown usb device is the camera. However, attempting to reinstall as you suggest just says the most relevant driver is already installed. Likewise, selecting to install driver from the inf file shows no drivers to install.

Martin

Blencogo

Hi Martin,

If the unknown device is not the camera and it does not appear anywhere else in Device Manager, then you are probably looking at a hardware problem with the camera or it has become disconnected.

bohica

Could someone tell me where their motion eye camera turns up in device manager and what it says? I'd like to have stronger evidence that there may be a hardware fault rather than a software fault so any other ideas appreciated.

Thanks

rich912

Could someone tell me where their motion eye camera turns up in device manager and what it says? I'd like to have stronger evidence that there may be a hardware fault rather than a software fault so any other ideas appreciated.

Thanks

Go n-éirí an bóthar leat

bohica

Thanks.

I haven't even got an imaging device section. I'm guessing this is bad. I tried running vaio hardware diagnostics but there is no camera test in mine.

bohica

It has been ages since I started this thread but I thought somebody may be interested in what I ended up doing. I got a quote to look in to the problem and it was rather expensive so I decided to just live without the camera. Since then, every now and again I get a popup message saying an unknown usb device has been found but when I try to install the software for it none is every found. I gave up.

Then, last weekend whilst I was adjusting the screen angle I noticed the unknown usb device came up every time I held the screen around the top frame near the camera - I was basically squeezing gently with my fore finger and thumb at the top frame around the display just to the right of the motion eye camera. Then I realised if I held it like this and navigated to the control panel my camera had appeared. This suggested to me there was a loose connection and given my laptop was out of warranty and I decided to take a look myself.

I undid 2 tiny screws either side of the display on the edge at the top and gently prised away the display surround at the top and half way down the sides and removed the capping strip on the top edge of the lid. This revealed the camera on the pcb and a small plug next to it which was obviously only pushed in half way. Gently pushing it in all the way and putting everything back together I now have a working motion eye 🙂

I'm not suggesting anyone does this - it is risky, but it solved my problem.

Blencogo

A good result bohica

Congratulations!!

Glad you've got it working now.

Thalamus.

Hi Martin,

If the unknown device is not the camera and it does not appear anywhere else in Device Manager, then you are probably looking at a hardware problem with the camera or it has become disconnected.

Congrats on identifying the problem Martin & Blencogo..