Webcam not detected

[Earlystock]

I bought my daughter an SVE 14 with touch screen. It is a great machine, but the webcam simply does not work. it can not be seen in device driver and there are no unknown devices. There appears to be no software on the machine that supports the webcam, and when I look at the downloads in the section of the Sony website, even on the "already loaded on machine" section it does not mention any software (like for example Arcsoft companion).Its almost like there simply is not one there - before I send it back I wanted to make sure I was not simply being silly. I have enabled webcam and microphone in the camera app, made no difference. Very frustrating

Message was edited by: Earlystock

[Blencogo · Accepted solution]

Hi Earlystock and welcome.

Sadly, you are not alone - we have seen this problem regularly with Windows 8.

The camera is a USB device that uses generic Windows USB Drivers - so it should work automatically when you open an application on which the camera has been set up. Try installing Skype and configure the video settings to use the webcam. Alternatively, try any other IM program.

There is no webcam software preinstalled with this model. You could install Arcsoft or another webcam application if you wish to capture video or images.

If the camera does not work automatically with an application such as Skype, it is possible that the Windows driver has become uninstalled. You can try uninstalling all the USB Controllers in Device Manager and rebooting as this sometimes works. You can also try a complete system recovery back to factory settings as this also sometimes works.

However, this should not be necessary with a new Vaio. I suggest you contact Vaio Support as they should be able to fix the problem and the more owners that tell them of the problem, the more likely a solution. To contact Vaio Support go here, choose Vaio and Computing and enter the Vaio's Serial Number. You will be given contact options: -

http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/contacts