Builtin webcam disappeared

Princess Nell · Guru Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Posts: 463

This is kinda off topic, but I hope to hear from people who may have been in a similar situation.

I noticed that the quick flashing of the webcam activity light during boot/udev stopped, and once the OS is loaded, the camera is no longer available, the uvcvideo module not loaded. Loading the module manually works, but no /dev/video device is created.

At first I wanted to blame the recent udev update

, but then noticed that lsusb no longer lists the camera, no matter what, so it looks like a hardware fault.

This laptop is 5 years old and I don't really feel like shipping it to Dell for repairs. Any suggestions for self-diagnosis or repair? It's a Vostro 1500 with OV2640 camera. This is the lsusb listing I used to get:

Kaso_da_Zmok · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 8:24 pm Post subject:

5 years is the time when usual laptops start to go mental. quick check would be to boot some liveCD and do lsusb for comparison.
self repair? disassemble the laptop, find the cable that goes from the camera to motherboard, and check if it is connected properly.
but i do not think you could break it while doing the ram upgrade.

Princess Nell · Guru Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Posts: 463

You're right. I found the connector, and it's definitely not in the way when upgrading the top DIMM.

What do you know. I'm not exactly impressed with the quality of that connector. I took a toothpick and carefully pushed the pins the delicate cables are soldered to back into the connector. Lo and behold, the camera device has reappeared!

Cowboys, Ted. Cowboys!