acer5672 orbicam "video preview failure"

guys im really frustrated right now with my 5672's webcam. i dont usually use my webcam but when im goin to use it it means that its important last month i have installed vista home premium, updated all of the drivers/bios and is working fine. but due to the large size it occupies my HDD and some annoying bugs, plus some apps that wont work with vista i decided to revert back to Xp sp2. i have been using using XP once again for about 2weeks. And the other day i am chatting with my friend and needed to use my webcam but suddenly it wont work...
error is --- Video Preview Failure... please check the device connection and make sure that the device is not being used by another application.. which is the 1st time i encountered it...

i tried reinstalling the driver but still the same. i even formatted and reinstalled Xp but the problem is still there.. I dont know what to do the webcam sometimes work.. if i continously open (open/close) the cam for about 5 to 10 times suddenly the will work again. after that when i close it and leave for about 2minutes and opened it again the same error appears... any idea to my 5672's problem???

 

just to verify if my webcam has a problem i tried using my sabayon 3.3 live cd.. using kopete messenger my webcam worked without a problem. when i click the webcam icon it instantly open my cam...

im thinking right now if my xp sp2 disk is the problem or the bios update that i did for the vista upgrade. anyone???

can i revert back to the previous bios im using? anyone tried it? and is it safe enough for this unit?? tnx...

 

i always had this problem, old or new bios/drivers never fixed (XP and VISTA), but on vista seems running a lot better. To me seems a time out of the application waiting for the camera to start... but not sure as i seldom use the camera.

 

well good to hear that im not the only one having problems with the cam. but i can say that before i upgraded into vista, and its bios that is when it started... haven't really had a problem before vista.

ill try once again reinstalling my xp fresh using a different installer. coz im using my xp slipstream disk. and finally using the old bios. if its possible with this laptop..

 

1 suggestion, for the webcam, install only the drivers, and not the whole application (do it from the device manager). i notice that if you install the whole stuff, the camera keeps failing; while if using only the drivers, it works quite well.

 

hi,

same problem with my cam on a Acer Aspire 9520 (windows XP). The webcam works with the orbicam soft. But impossible to initialyze the webcam with msn or skype. I have uninstalled the webcam. Re-install only drivers, without the soft. same problem.

since one week, i am searching in a lot of forum (also in french). No solution, so far.

Help needed. thanks. fred.

 

Guys try to download the vista drivers for your acer orbicam and install it. I had similar problems with it too.. im about to give up but before that, as a last chance.. i tried to install the vista driver.. and i guess my cam works good now..
hope this helps

 

Well it works for me on my 5672wlmi (and it's the same video for this laptop as well as other models)



my suggestion is to blow away the acer crap and start fresh with default drivers, but that requires oem disks (which you probably don't have)

Either acquire the disks or find another solution (pm me if you need help finding a disk)

--ssx--

 

hi,
for me, the problem has been fixed by uninstalling the Orbicam soft and the webcam, then install the soft and drivers for the logitech quickcam (found here: http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/downloads/software/US/EN,CRID=1794,contentid=10233).
Strange cause my cam is integrated in the pc and is not like webcams shown on the logitech website ( http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/downloads/categories/US/EN,CRID=1794).
Nevertheless, it works for me (msn, skype and quickcam soft) . Hope this will work for you, guys.
ciao
fred (not english-speaking as you've noticed)

 

Could you tell me which camera the driver you recomended? becauce when i click on the link I just came to logitech default webpage.

I have the same probleme with the orbicam

 

For those still wondering how to get your Acer OrbiCam - Logitech to work, I have searched the world over with far too many times failing to get my Aspire 5670 to recognize and work with its built-in webcam. But recently I was fortunate enough to finally find out that installing the latest drivers didn’t work at all whereas a particular old one worked well both on XP and Vista OS.

You should go to this link:
http://www.driverstock.com/Acer-Aspire-5670-driver-download/4-21-12877-94131/index.html

Download the zip file then save all contents in a folder that you will browse to use later.

Do not use the setup.exe from that folder. It won’t work… Just go to Device Manager and Uninstall your current driver of Acer OrbiCam. Then click, Update Driver, and point to the folder of those unzip files. Let it install then restart your computer.

When the computer restarts go to Skype or any communication/camera software you’re using and set the video camera. Voila, this time you will see the video coming on to the screen after about 10-15 seconds of black screen.

I have to thank that site for the download.

Last but not least, please remember that this one driver (version 9.4.0.1120) works very well on both XP and Vista… You don’t need to update it to any other higher version!

As for other Acer Aspire models, just check other pages from that website… I have no way of knowing since I only have my model. But I think you will be able to make use of your OrbiCam once again.

Best of Luck and Enjoy Video Chatting!

Numo

PS I think if you get only that driver file (version 9.4.0.1120) from the link after unzipping, please see whether putting only that driver in a new folder and install in Device Manager will get your camera to work too. If so, it will be nice for you to just upload that driver file and paste your link here so that others can just download this file and not all others from the link above.