Travelmate 8200 Orbicam <-- Who has had/has problems?

Hello everyone,
I've dug through the forums and found numerous people who have problems with their Orbicam. I have just recently, (2-3 months ago) run into problems with my camera as well which seems to be more of a USB issue than just an Orbicam issue. At first, I thought it was merely a driver problem, but I have completed all the suggested steps, including a complete restore to factory settings as well as a new install. The Orbicam does show up in the device manager, but whenever any program tries to "activate" it, the camera disconnects. Has anyone run into this problem? I'm wondering whether there is any correlation to BIOS revision. In conjuction with this, I often get messages concerning USB 2.0 devices, more specifically, the port refuses to operate at USB2.0 speeds and will only run at 1.0 speeds. Sounds like it could be a power issue?

I have also been in contact with Acer, who simply informed me my warranty expired mid-march and so, it'll cost $499 to repair. Does anyone have any ideas what could be the problem? I'm open to doing circuit rework on the motherboard/USB2.0 module on my own.

Can everyone who has had problesm chime in here? I trying to determine whether this is an extremely rare/isolated incident or whether the problem is more widespread. Thanks!

 

i also have this kind of problem.. im giving up...

 

Don't give up...I'm doing research to hand to Acer to let them know, their lappy's have problems. I have 3 x 8204 machines in my family, every one of which is exhibiting the same behaviour so I'm guessing this is more widespread than they would ever like to admit. Also, the purchase dates were seperated by more than 6 months or so. Overall, I'd have to admit that Acer's quality control is somewhat...lacking. For example, the right mouse button on the first laptop is noticably "sunken" below the surface. Oh that and the webcam doesn't work

 

The Orbicam has never initialized correctly for me on first tries. It's usually the second try that the camera will activate properly for whatever program is wanting access to it. I hope you get your issue resolved.

 

I've never had issues, but then again I've never honestly used it, never seen any point or real need.

 

i also have a problem with my orbicam, it seems to work when it pleases. i am thinking that it may be a bootup problem as sometimes after i have rebooted my laptop it will work, also once it has been used working, it continues to thereafter until i next turn it on where it will again decie whether it wants to work or not.

oh, i have an aspire 5103 for reference..

 

Sorry to hear that

I use my cam almost erveryday for few hours,
always working great.

sometimes it reported cam is being used by another software, i just have to close the program from task manager, that's all

 

i take it you have taken the obvious steps:
- update BIOS to the latest
- Install latest orbicam drivers (I think there are even some on the Logitech web page but otherwise from the Acer downloads website)

my orbicam works fairly well these days. i don't use it a lot but it's enabled in skype so whenever somebody skypes me, whoops there it is (I know now why video phones never became popular - suddenly you have to look pretty even when just getting out of bed, lazing on the couch, and you have to make sure you are not naked and/or in bed when answering a call - silly!).

anyway - works fine in skype.

I have also at some point installed the Windows XP fix for USB device power drain. I don't have a link handy but search this forum, it's somewhere here. I would not think that this makes a difference for you but you never know.

 

I had the same problem with Orbicam since day one... Somebody had it fixed by Acer by replacing the wire, as far as I remember. My warranty expired anyway - I didn't have a chance to contact them before... Their phone support didn't work at all and there was no answer for my emails.
BTW, are the palmrests of your 8204 getting darker with time? They are not dirty for sure, but it looks like that plastic changes color with time... I've never had that kind of problem with any of my notebooks...

 

Yep, I recall that as well...someone had their's fixed by Acer by replacing a wire of some sort...the question is, where that wire is. I'm fairly certain the problem is NOT the wire running from the camera to the keyboard half of the machine. The orbicam IS showing in Windows...

As for BIOS, well, when you mentioned that it kind of rung some bells. I *THINK* problems became noticable WORSE with the latest firmware. I'm going to try flashing with an OLDER BIOS to see if it works better.

 

Opps, just put this on an old thread.
My two week old 9301 has same problem. It worked first 2 days then I get a message unable to start or something like that BUT it works in the fancy screensaver. I have not changed any setting [dont know how to] or deleted any functions.
Also had a problem first two days it would not go beyond 'preparing to shut down' !! It will not recognise my 2 month old Sandisk micro stick [vista premium] Any ideas ...in laymans terms.. Thanks

 

OK i don't know if this will help you but i had issues with my laptops hdd it failed so after so many attempts i got it to work then i installed all drivers the vga driver failed to install properly and the cam one installed properly but did not recognized the camera ( i used the drivers from the acer site )
so here is how i solved the issue i installed the drivers which took me a lot of tries since they didn't wanted to go then i downloaded the drivers from logitech they don't have drivers for orbicam so i just downloaded the drivers for the quickcam ultravision special edition i installed them and bingo everything is working nicely by the way i had to run the installer and restart the lap several times for it to finish the install so if is not letting you do it just run the installer over and over hope this helps you

 

Hello everyone... so is there a fix to this problem yet? I too have those "Used by another application/Unplugged" issues with Orbicam. Am using the 944_1069a version.

I have posted once that I had it fixed at Acer's service centre for about an hour, with some kind of loose wiring, but now after about a year the problem came back. But I had also done a few complete reinstalls after since. Anyway, because this time they said it would take 5 days to look into, I had to cancel.

After reading the posts there's a chance it not being hardware-related, and now anxiously finding a way to fix the orbicam.

 

lemme join you guys

after one and half yaer worked perfectly suddenly it stops working

it said being used by another applcation

 

I also had this problem. I have it resolved.
I first tried to update the drivers.
http://www.opendrivers.com/driver/2...er-v9.4.0.1120a-windows-xp-free-download.html

This didn't appear to help, but my error message was then different. It now said my camera was unplugged instead of being used by another application.

I went into Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager

I uninstalled the Orbicam. I then right clicked on the root level node and clicked "Scan for hardware changes".. this reinstalled the camera. After this the camera worked.

Good luck

 

Does your Orbicam still work properly?