HP built-in web cam no longer working with Vista

[JP]

I bought an HP Pavillion tx1410us tablet notebook last year with Vista Home
Premium pre-installed. The built-in 1.3 Mpix web cam used to work then with
Skype. Sometime along the way it stopped working that I just discovered. I
suspect one of the Vista upgrades (SP1 or SP2) may have been the culprit.
Unfortunately I can't find the driver for this web cam on HP's web site that
shows itself to be originally from Ricoh but they don't have a driver for it
either. In my frustruation I tried something suggested on one of the
Internet forums: uninstall the nonfunctioning driver from under the Imaging
Devices tab with the expectation that on reboot Vista would discover the new
hardware present and install a new driver. No such luck. Now I don't even
have the Imaging Devices in the Device Driver folder.
Is any solution for this problem or I must resign myself to a 3rd party
external web cam?
jp

 

[Rick Rogers]

What does HP support have to say about this problem with their hardware?
Have you tried contacting them yet? That'd be the first step as they are
more likely to know of any conflicts or issues with their webcam and a
service pack.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
Vote for my shoe: http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[James Matthews]

I think you should also ask HP your question and post this on the 3rd party
vista questions. Try searching your model on google the drivers should be
online. If not post your model here maybe we can find it for you.

 

[JP]

Well, if you've had a chance to try out HP's outsourced support, you would
know why I give more faith to these kind of forums than theirs. In any case,
I posted my question to them, too, but their first suggestion failed to
resolve the problem. They now went back to further research the problem.
Since my Google searches indicate that my problem is not a unique one at
all, I would have thought HP would not need to research it as if it was some
new issue. So I keep looking on my own but I pretty much have tried already
what you're suggesting, though I don't quite get what you mean by "3rd party
vista questions."
jp

 

[JP]

What does HP support have to say about this problem with their hardware?
Have you tried contacting them yet? That'd be the first step as they are
more likely to know of any conflicts or issues with their webcam and a
service pack.

After getting the runaround from HP's email support that sent me in all the
wrong directions, I finally discovered the source of the problem on my own
by researching the Net for similar issues. It turns out that the cause was a
Cypress USB hub driver that I am fairly certain I got during one of the
Vista updates, though it may have been an optional item. The driver's name
was "HX2LP Kit (3.03.0000.2)" and it was even marked as Alpha! I don't know
how such a driver could get onto the Vista update list but judging from all
the complaints on the net, it affected a lot of people. All I needed is to
replace that driver with the alternate generic driver from Microsoft
(rolling back, if that button is not greyed out) and the webcam is back in
business after a reboot. Even the fingerprint recognition is working again.
jp