XPS 1647 Webcam Driver

I got my 1647 a few days ago and formatted/installed Win7 Ultimate. Everything works great except the webcam freezes up occasionally. The device manager lists the standard MS Integrated Webcam driver 6.1.7600.16385 and the dell site has no standalone webcam driver that I can find, and Dell tech support said all I could do was install dell webcam central.

I installed dell webcam central in the hopes that would update the driver, but although the webcam central SW works, the driver has not been updated in device manager. It still says the MS Integrated Webcam 6.1.7600.16385.

What do other people who have no problems with their webcam see under device manager for their imaging device, and where did you find the driver? Neither dell nor creative labs has the driver anyplace I can find using their built-in search.

Thanks in advance!

 

There isn't one.

 

So does anybody else see their webcam freeze up while using Windows Live Messenger with the built in driver?

 

Mine is that and I've been using that for months without problems. Did you try it with other chat tools like Skype etc ?

 

No- getting my mother to use MSN was difficult enough, so that is all that I have used.

What we saw when I connected to her for video chat was that I would see my side freeze up- she reported seeing my side freeze as well. Her side was running fine throughout.

I had to cancel the video call and restart it to recover. This had to be done every few minutes.

Because I could see my side freeze up locally, I suspect a flakey webcam versus a flakey IP link between us.

I have not had an opportunity to retry after installing the Dell Webcam Central software, but since the driver had not changed I did not have much of an expectation for any improved behavior.

Oh well, when I find time I'll try some other video capture apps to see if the problem exists there as well. Dell Webcam Central works stably, but the lag/framerate are horrible compared to video chat via messenger, so that isn't a good indication of things working.

 

You guys know you can install Vista 64 bit drivers if there are no windows 7 64 bit drivers right? as they are almost identical. I do it and never have any problems

 

You need to test it with a recording program that's local to see if it's a webcam issue or a internet issue or a MSN issue. Once it's narrowed down, fixing your issue won't be a problem.

 

I am aware of that, yes. But when I login to my drivers page from Dell, only Windows 7 64-bit is shown as an OS in the pull down and I cannot find any sane way of searching for other drivers with Dell's crappy site.

Yeah, like I said, I have to do that. I was hoping it was just a driver that other people had that I was missing, as some other people on the forums here indicated that they needed to install a webcam driver to resolve similar issues. Noone answered when I asked where/which driver it was, of course!

 

So the solution would be download this one from the 1640 its the same camera

just for future reference if you goto support.dell.com and click drivers and downloads if it comes up with your specific build
1)click on change your product
2)a pop up will come on the screen with three options choose by service tag, select a model, choose from your list. click on select a model
3)then pick laptops -> studio xps laptop -> then choose the respective one you want 1640/45/47

or if it doesn't skip step 1

but here is the driver anyway
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&releaseid=R213648&SystemID=STUDIOXPS16&servicetag=&os=WV64&osl=en&deviceid=16027&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=3&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=0&libid=17&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=302206

 

I'll try to give it a shot tonight, or definitely this weekend. I'll try with the current installed driver to make sure I can recreate the problem then try with the new one... Thanks for the suggestion! I figured they wouldn't make the driver available for the other flavors if it wasn't for the 1647, foolish me!

 

The vista driver does not install- it fails at the end. Oh well, I'll keep exploring.

 

hmmm interesting

 

Driver doesn't install for me either. Fails at the end.

 

Try and install drivers in the Vista compatibility mode

 

Nope, I tried it but it doesn't work. In general I have found that drivers for Vista/older either install as is or won't install under Windows 7, even with compatibility mode.

Applications benefit greatly from compatibility mode, and yes, most Vista drivers work great under Windows 7, but some just don't.

 

Yea the compatibility mode doesn't work on these drivers on the 1647, I tried to do a force install via .ini file and it BSOD'd near the end.

 

Sorry guys really thought it would work