upgrading an acer aspire one - Webcam

[Norm X]

Hi,

I used to fix my cars instead of buying a new one. I've upgraded my WinXP
Acer Aspire One with 30GB of Supertalent SSD mass storage. It clocks 60 MB/s
read, 30 MB/s write. I added an additional 1 GB of RAM. I also have a 32GB
Duracell SDHC for over 60GB of storage. I'm getting to be really pleased
with the beast.

Over time the Acer Crystal Eye Webcam became non functional. For awhile only
a generic MS webcam driver would install then no driver would install. WinXP
tells me there is an unrecognized USB device. When I disconnect the data
connector to the webam board I see there is no device. I think the device is
talking gibberish on the USB line and the hardware should be replaced.

I found this part that is identical to the one in my machine:

http://www.acerparts.ca/acer-aspire-one-a110-series-camera-board.html

CAD $24.99

Anyone have an opinion? Should I order?

Thanks.

Ta ta

 

[Char Jackson]

Hi,

I used to fix my cars instead of buying a new one.

Thank you, I guess.

 

[Paul]

Hi,

I used to fix my cars instead of buying a new one. I've upgraded my WinXP
Acer Aspire One with 30GB of Supertalent SSD mass storage. It clocks 60 MB/s
read, 30 MB/s write. I added an additional 1 GB of RAM. I also have a 32GB
Duracell SDHC for over 60GB of storage. I'm getting to be really pleased
with the beast.

Over time the Acer Crystal Eye Webcam became non functional. For awhile only
a generic MS webcam driver would install then no driver would install. WinXP
tells me there is an unrecognized USB device. When I disconnect the data
connector to the webam board I see there is no device. I think the device is
talking gibberish on the USB line and the hardware should be replaced.

I found this part that is identical to the one in my machine:

http://www.acerparts.ca/acer-aspire-one-a110-series-camera-board.html

CAD $24.99

Anyone have an opinion? Should I order?

Thanks.

What's the objective ?

My Acer laptop, has a poor camera built into it. It still
works, and I wouldn't give you $0.10 for it.

If you want a webcam, connect an external one via USB.

It still takes effort to find a good one, but at least you've got choices.

You can disconnect the existing one, and save a few milliamps of current.

It's always possible you'll pay $24.99 for a replacement, and have
it fail the same way.

*******

A webcam, can consist of a controller chip (the USB part), and a sensor.
The controller chip, includes an interface for an external EEPROM, and
in there, the manufacturer can pick a different VID/PID for the device/sensor
combination. It means there can be a bunch of what appear to be different
cameras, which are all using the same hardware. And as such, there might not
be a lot to identify the thing with, electronically. So when it says it isn't
recognized, it could be that the EEPROM contains bogus information, and
the controller is actually fine. You can use UVCView and see how much of
the information makes sense.

You can take the INF file from the driver package for the webcam,
and compare the numbers in there, to what is coming from the webcam.

The USB standard, defines a USB Video Class. Cameras compliant with that
standard, can work without drivers. The driver in the OS is sufficient.
Some of the cheap cameras aren't UVC, and the only way they can be
recognized, is by the installation of their custom driver.

Even if you have a UVC camera, not all resolutions may be offered under UVC.
I think my external webcam, only goes up to 960 x something when the OS UVC driver
is being used. If I want the max resolution, that's only available with
a separate driver.

You can test the webcam under Linux. That's a different driver solution, and
a separate opportunity to experiment with flaky hardware. The distro may include
a copy of "Cheese" and perhaps you can take a test photo with an application
like that. Camera drivers have been in the Linux kernel for a couple of years
now. Linux is not always the best with cameras - I've had Linux crash while
running a webcam, but it is getting better with time. (That's what happens
when you put camera drivers in the kernel :-( )

Paul