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svenjafour

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webcam not detected through USB port

I tried to install a logitech webcam and the installation went through but in the end after automatic reboot, there's a window that asks me to plug in the cam into the USB port. Well I did, but the system doesn't detect the cam. It seem like it doesn't know that I plugged it in. What can I do?

Svenja
Avatar of nasdaqphil
nasdaqphil

To start...let's see what your getting...Click Start Button>Settings>Control Panel then click "System" then click on "Device Manager" then click on "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" and see what you have listed there...one thing should be your new camera.  If it is in there, right click on it and click "properties"...it should say that the "Device is working properly".  In that same box, you could click on the driver tab and click "update driver" and let windows do its thing to re-install the coreect driver.  Once its done, it will ask you to reboot.  Reboot your computer with the camera plugged into the USB port and see if it works.  If not, try the same steps and when you click on the device manager tab, right click on your camera under the "Universal Serial Bus" link and click delete...this will uninstall your driver and ask you to reboot again.  Reboot this time with the camera plugged in and see if windows will find it for you automatically, which it should.

Hope this helps.
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my camera is not listed on the universal serial bus controllers :-(
Then its not going to work for sure.  OK...do you have enough USB ports for all your stuff?  or do you swap things out of each port?  Like your top USB port is used for a printer, a web cam, etc?  Is it being shared by something else?

Next:

Try a complete re-install.  Go to start>settings>control panel>add remove programs> scroll down and find the software you used to install the camera.  Click "remove" and completely remove the software from your system.  Now try to reboot with the camera plugged in and let windows find the camera and install the proper driver for you...it should do it automatically....just follow directions.

Also, do you have more than 1 USB port?  If so, you might want to try a different port in case that particular port is fried.

Did you have anything under the Universal Serial Bus controllers link earlier?  What was in there?  There might be a conflict or that USB port might be broken.

Try the things I mentioned above and let me know what you find in there.  Swap to a different USB port and reboot after you unistall the software.
ok, I think I have two USB ports in the front of the tower. There is nothing plugged in. if I go to Universal Serial Bus Controllers, there is the following listed:

- USB printing support
- USB Root Hub
- USB Root Hub
- VIA USB Universal Host Controller
- VIA USB Universal Host Controller

I tried to remove the program and re-install it a several times, it all works till the last step when I have to plug in my cam, it just doens't know that I plugged in the cam, it won't do anything.
Avatar of Kyle Schroeder
What kind of system/motherboard do you have (i.e. HP Pavilion 6543, Asus A7V133, etc)? If you have a VIA based motherboard, you may need to install the VIA USB filter driver.  VIA chips are on many systems that have AMD Athlon/Duron processors, and some Pentium III boards also.

Try USBMan's Troubleshooter: http://www.usbman.com/Troubleshooter%20General.htm

-dog*
ok, I think I have two USB ports in the front of the tower. There is nothing plugged in. if I go to Universal Serial Bus Controllers, there is the following listed:

- USB printing support
- USB Root Hub
- USB Root Hub
- VIA USB Universal Host Controller
- VIA USB Universal Host Controller

I tried to remove the program and re-install it a several times, it all works till the last step when I have to plug in my cam, it just doens't know that I plugged in the cam, it won't do anything.
well, I am a computer dummie, I have som fujitsu-siemens tower. I don't know why the USB wont' work since it does with my digital camera ???
Hmmmmmm....Do you have ANYTHING else you use the USB port for?

Right click on each of the things you mentioned above and click properties on each.  See if each USB item is working correctly.

Next, if you do not have any other USB devices, you might want to right click on each and click delete.  You will be deleting the USB drivers that are not used and you could start fresh.

Did you unistall the software and stick the plug into the other USB port and reboot?  Windows should automatically find your USB device.

Remove the software and DO NOT re-install it and reboot windows with the plug plugged into the USB port that you were not using before and see if windows detects it.
well, I am a computer dummie, I have som fujitsu-siemens tower. I don't know why the USB wont' work since it does with my digital camera ???
well, I right clicked on every above listed devices and it said they were working properly. Ok, I still have two emty USB ports on the front side of my tower. I don't know where the other ones are. I will now try to restart with the plug plugged into the USB port and see if it detects it automatically. After installation I did restart the pc and it wouldn't detect the cam...
ok, I uninstalled everything, plugged the cam in and restarted the pc, it wouldn't detect it. I looked under Universal Serial Bus Controllers and there were still the same things listed.
Im getting stumped.

The last resort I could possibly think of is to completely remove the other things listed under USB and right click and delete them to start fresh.  If you decide to try this, remember that whatever you have that runs off a USB port will no longer work and will need to be reinstalled.

- USB printing support
- USB Root Hub
- USB Root Hub
- VIA USB Universal Host Controller
- VIA USB Universal Host Controller

Myself, I would just delete all the usb drivers and reboot with the camera plugged in and turned on if its got a power switch.  Or at least, delete one of each of the doubles...delete one of the - VIA USB Universal Host Controller and - and one of the USB Root Hub and unless you have a USB printer, I would remove that as well.  Folow directions in my first post to find them again and right click on each and click delete.  Restart after you deleted all of the ones mentioned above.


After that, you will need to reinstall your digital cam as well.

ok, I uninstalled everything, plugged the cam in and restarted the pc, it wouldn't detect it. I looked under Universal Serial Bus Controllers and there were still the same things listed.
ok, do you think it won't hurt deleting the doubles?
Just wondering, on the offchance, are you running Windows NT? It doesn't support USB.
ok, do you think it won't hurt deleting the doubles?
well, I heard about that, but no, I am running Windows 2000 professional :-)
Well, it won't hurt deleting doubles but you might have to reinstall other usb devices.

I will be honest, you wont "mess" anything up, but if you don't know what you are doing, it could be risky as far as getting the usb ports working correctly again.

Something is apparantly wrong either with the camera itself, the USB port of the software.

If it was mine, I would delete all the other usb listing, but I have enough computer knowledge to get things working properly again if it still didnt work after that.

For you, as long as you have your original computer, windows, digital cam disks, you should only have to reinstall the other usb items.

Its your call.  You will not permanently mess anything up - that is for sure.  At worst, your USB will not work, which it seems to be the case now anyway.

Let me know what you decide.  I will be on the computer a good deal of the morning and can try to help if you get into any hot water.
well, I heard about that, but no, I am running Windows 2000 professional :-)
thank you so much for your help so far. Well, this is not my computer so I am scared to mess the stuff up. I don't know where the re-installation discs are either. So I am scared to delete everything... could I delete the doubles and then might it be possible that the cam will work then without messing up anything?
Im not sure.  It depends on the problem.  If the USB port is broke, then nothing will work.

If its not your computer, then you have to be careful.  You mentioned you have a digital cam and it works fine, correct?

Try plugging the digital cam into the same port you were using for the web cam and see if it still works to test the port and to see if the problem is in the camera itself.

As I said earlier, its your call.  I would have deleted everything under USB by now myself because starting from scratch is sometimes easier then trying to find a specific problem.  Tell me exactly how many different usb devices your set up uses in all...printer?  web cam, digital cam?....what else??
thank you so much for your help so far. Well, this is not my computer so I am scared to mess the stuff up. I don't know where the re-installation discs are either. So I am scared to delete everything... could I delete the doubles and then might it be possible that the cam will work then without messing up anything?
well, this computer belongs to my sister. She is on vacations right now. I know she has been using a digital cam 2 weeks ago on this computer and it worked just fine. I don't have the digital cam here now so i can not test that (I would have done that a long time ago if I did have it here). Well, for the usb devices, I don't know how many are set up here. How can I find out?
You better not play with it if its not yours...particularly if you do not know how to fix it if it gets messed up.

Maybe print this post out and save it for when she gets back and with her permission, delete all the other usb devices listed.

Im sorry I could not figure it out...maybe someone else could help.  I don't understand why windows is not recognizing the new cam.
well, this computer belongs to my sister. She is on vacations right now. I know she has been using a digital cam 2 weeks ago on this computer and it worked just fine. I don't have the digital cam here now so i can not test that (I would have done that a long time ago if I did have it here). Well, for the usb devices, I don't know how many are set up here. How can I find out?
yes, me either, I really don't know, but thank you very much for your time and help. You have a great evening

Svenja
check in the bios and see if they are all enabled
You can't hurt anything by removing the USB ports from the Device manager, W2K will automatically redetect them when you restart.  Try installing the USB filter patch I mentioned above:
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=71#usb

-dog*

Just curious, how did you determine that the system doesn't detect the camera?  What isn't it doing?

You may have Microsoft Netmeeting installed on the computer (it's free from Microsoft if you don't).  Perhaps you can run it & see what happens?

Regards,

-Steve G
The camera should be listed under "Imaging Devices" in Device Manager.  Go to Start, Control Panel, System, Hardware, Device Manager, Imaging Devices, and see if your cam is listed there.  If so, right click on it and view Properties to see if it is working properly.  You might also verify that the drivers installed for the cam are W2K compatable as many drivers for Win9x won't work in W2K and WinXP.  You might check Logitech's website, in particular, the webcam support section for help.  Here's the link to the English language webcam support section:

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm?page=support/products/categories&CRID=307&countryid=19&languageid=1

Hope this helps...
OK, some clarification here.

In device manager, if the system has problems with the USB entries, any of them, then the camera won't be detected.  So, it isn't a matter of checking for the camera, it is a matter of making sure that the USB ports are actually working correctly and/or if the hub roots are working properly.

In device manager you will normally see the USB entries at the bottom of the hardware list.  When you expand it you should see 2 to 4 entries, maybe more.

There should be one entry for the actual device for each port, and there should be one "hub root" for each port.

Do any of these entries have a yellow exclamation mark by them?

Additionally, almost all motherboards have a set of usb ports on the back of the computer by or near the PS2 keyboard/mouse ports.  Does your computer have these?  If so, it may be as easily as plugging the cam into the rear usb port.

I know a couple of cases that have the ports for the usb up front but whomever put together the system didn't plug in the usb wires or plugged them in incorrectly.  Some cases give you the 4-5 wires split seperatly and you have to know which one of the wires to plug in to which pin onto the header on the mobo.

You probably should let us know what box this is so we can look up things about it in order to help you.
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